Related papers: An a priori investigation of astrophysical false p…
Wide-field photometric transit surveys for Jupiter-sized planets are inundated by astrophysical false positives, namely systems that contain an eclipsing binary and mimic the desired photometric signature. We discuss several examples of…
Searches for planetary transits find many astrophysical false positives as a by-product. There are four main types analyzed in the literature: a grazing-incidence eclipsing binary star, an eclipsing binary star with a small radius companion…
Transit search programs such as CoRoT and Kepler now have the capability of detecting planets as small as the Earth. The detection of these planets however requires the removal of all false positives. Although many false positives can be…
We present detailed simulations of the Pan-STARRS-1 (PS1) multi-epoch, multi-band 3-pi Survey in order to assess its potential yield of transiting planets and eclipsing binaries. This survey differs from dedicated transit surveys in that it…
We investigate in this paper the astrophysical false-positive configuration in exoplanet-transit surveys that involves eclipsing binaries and giant planets which present only a secondary eclipse, as seen from the Earth. To test how an…
The past two decades have seen a significant advancement in the detection, classification and understanding of exoplanets and binaries. This is due, in large part, to the increase in use of small-aperture telescopes (< 20 cm) to survey…
Ground-based searches for transiting Jupiter-sized planets have so far produced few detections of planets, but many of stellar systems with eclipse depths, durations, and orbital periods that resemble those expected from planets. I show…
Many ground-based photometric surveys are now under way, and five of them have been successful at detecting transiting exoplanets. Nevertheless, detecting transiting planets has turned out to be much more challenging than initially…
We investigate the rate of false planetary transit detection due to blending with eclipsing binaries. Our approach is purely empirical and is based on the analysis of the artificially blended light curves of the eclipsing binary stars in…
Context. The CoRoT satellite searches for planets by applying the transit method, monitoring up to 12 000 stars in the galactic plane for 150 days in each observation run. This search is contaminated by a large fraction of false positives,…
Wide-field surveys for transiting planets, such as the NASA Kepler and TESS missions, are usually conducted without knowing which stars have binary companions. Unresolved and unrecognized binaries give rise to systematic errors in planet…
Astrophysical false positives that mimic planetary transit are one of the main limitation to exoplanet transit surveys. In this proceeding, we review the issue of the false positive in transit survey and the possible complementary…
(abridged) Context. Wide binaries are a potential pathway for the formation of hot Jupiters. The binary fraction among host stars is an important discriminator between competing formation theories, but has not been well characterised.…
The formation and dynamical history of hot Jupiters is currently debated, with wide stellar binaries having been suggested as a potential formation pathway. Additionally, contaminating light from both binary companions and unassociated…
Ground-based wide-field surveys for nearby transiting gas giants are yielding far fewer true planets than astrophysical false positives, of which some are difficult to reject. Recent experience has highlighted the need for careful analysis…
We present a new method for differentiating between planetary transits and eclipsing binaries based on the presence of the ellipsoidal light variations. These variations can be used to detect stellar secondaries with masses ~0.2 M_sun…
Wide-field searches for transiting extra-solar giant planets face the difficult challenge of separating true transit events from the numerous false positives caused by isolated or blended eclipsing binary systems. We describe here the…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA-sponsored Explorer mission that will perform a wide-field survey for planets that transit bright host stars. Here, we predict the properties of the transiting planets that TESS will…
In this paper, we determine the detectability of eclipsing binary star companions from eclipse timing variations using the Kepler mission dataset. Extensive and precise stellar time-series photometry from space-based missions enable…
Compared to bright star searches, surveys for transiting planets against fainter (V=12-18) stars have the advantage of much higher sky densities of dwarf star primaries, which afford easier detection of small transiting bodies. Furthermore,…