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Bergsten, G. J., Pascucci, I., Mulders, G. D., Fernandes, R. B., & Koskinen, T. T. (2022). The Demographics of Kepler's Earths and Super-Earths into the Habitable Zone. Astron. J., 164(5), 190.
Abstract: Understanding the occurrence of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars is essential to the search for Earth analogs. Yet a lack of reliable Kepler detections for such planets has forced many estimates to be derived from the close-in (2 < P-orb < 100 days) population, whose radii may have evolved differently under the effect of atmospheric mass-loss mechanisms. In this work, we compute the intrinsic occurrence rates of close-in super-Earths (similar to 1-2 R-circle plus and sub-Neptunes (similar to 2-3.5 R-circle plus) for FGK stars (0.56-1.63 M-circle dot) as a function of orbital period and find evidence of two regimes: where super-Earths are more abundant at short orbital periods, and where sub-Neptunes are more abundant at longer orbital periods. We fit a parametric model in five equally populated stellar mass bins and find that the orbital period of transition between these two regimes scales with stellar mass, like P-trans proportional to M-*(1.7 +/- 0.2). Ptrans These results suggest a population of former sub-Neptunes contaminating the population of gigayear-old close-in super-Earths, indicative of a population shaped by atmospheric loss. Using our model to constrain the long-period population of intrinsically rocky planets, we estimate an occurrence rate of Gamma(circle plus) = 15(-4)(+6)% for Earth-sized habitable zone planets, and predict that sub-Neptunes may be similar to twice as common as super-Earths in the habitable zone (when normalized over the natural log-orbital period and radius range used). Finally, we discuss our results in the context of future missions searching for habitable zone planets.
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Fernandes, R. B., Hardegree-Ullman, K. K., Pascucci, I., Bergsten, G. J., Mulders, G. D., Cunha, K., et al. (2023). Using Photometrically Derived Properties of Young Stars to Refine TESS's Transiting Young Planet Survey Completeness. Astron. J., 166(4), 175.
Abstract: The demographics of young exoplanets can shed light on their formation and evolution processes. Exoplanet properties are derived from the properties of their host stars. As such, it is important to accurately characterize the host stars since any systematic biases in their derivation can negatively impact the derivation of planetary properties. Here we present a uniform catalog of photometrically derived stellar effective temperatures, luminosities, radii, and masses for 4865 young (<1 Gyr) stars in 31 nearby clusters and moving groups within 200 pc. We compared our photometrically derived properties to a subset of those derived from spectra and found them to be in good agreement. We also investigated the effect of stellar properties on the detection efficiency of transiting short-period young planets with TESS as calculated in Fernandes et al. (2022) and found an overall increase in the detection efficiency when the new photometrically derived properties were taken into account. Most notably, there is a 1.5 x increase in the detection efficiencies for sub-Neptunes/Neptunes (1.8-6 R-circle plus) implying that, for our sample of young stars, better characterization of host star properties can lead to the recovery of more small transiting planets. Our homogeneously derived catalog of updated stellar properties, along with a larger unbiased stellar sample and more detections of young planets, will be a crucial input to the accurate estimation of the occurrence rates of young short-period planets.
Keywords: POWERED MASS-LOSS; RADIUS DISTRIBUTION; VALLEY
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Fernandes, R. B., Mulders, G. D., Pascucci, I., Bergsten, G. J., Koskinen, T. T., Hardegree-Ullman, K. K., et al. (2022). pterodactyls: A Tool to Uniformly Search and Vet for Young Transiting Planets in TESS Primary Mission Photometry. Astron. J., 164(3), 78.
Abstract: Kepler's short-period exoplanet population has revealed evolutionary features such as the Radius Valley and the Hot Neptune desert that are likely sculpted by atmospheric loss over time. These findings suggest that the primordial planet population is different from the Gyr-old Kepler population, and motivates exoplanet searches around young stars. Here, we present pterodactyls, a data reduction pipeline specifically built to address the challenges in discovering exoplanets around young stars and to work with TESS Primary Mission 30-minute cadence photometry, since most young stars were not preselected TESS two-minute cadence targets. pterodactyls builds on publicly available and tested tools in order to extract, detrend, search, and vet transiting young planet candidates. We search five clusters with known transiting planets: the Tucana-Horologium Association, IC 2602, Upper Centaurus Lupus, Ursa Major, and Pisces-Eridani. We show that pterodactyls recovers seven out of the eight confirmed planets and one out of the two planet candidates, most of which were initially detected in two-minute cadence data. For these clusters, we conduct injection-recovery tests to characterize our detection efficiency, and compute an intrinsic planet occurrence rate of 49% +/- 20% for sub-Neptunes and Neptunes (1.8-6 R (circle plus)) within 12.5 days, which is higher than Kepler's Gyr-old occurrence rates of 6.8% +/- 0.3%. This potentially implies that these planets have shrunk with time due to atmospheric mass loss. However, a proper assessment of the occurrence of transiting young planets will require a larger sample unbiased to planets already detected. As such, pterodactyls will be used in future work to search and vet for planet candidates in nearby clusters and moving groups.
Keywords: POWERED MASS-LOSS; ZODIACAL EXOPLANETS; RADIUS DISTRIBUTION; DWARF; HUNT; STAR; FREQUENCY; EFFICIENT; KEPLER; SYSTEM
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Leleu, A., Alibert, Y., Hara, N. C., Hooton, M. J., Wilson, T. G., Robutel, P., et al. (2021). Six transiting planets and a chain of Laplace resonances in TOI-178. Astron. Astrophys., 649, A26.
Abstract: Determining the architecture of multi-planetary systems is one of the cornerstones of understanding planet formation and evolution. Resonant systems are especially important as the fragility of their orbital configuration ensures that no significant scattering or collisional event has taken place since the earliest formation phase when the parent protoplanetary disc was still present. In this context, TOI-178 has been the subject of particular attention since the first TESS observations hinted at the possible presence of a near 2:3:3 resonant chain. Here we report the results of observations from CHEOPS, ESPRESSO, NGTS, and SPECULOOS with the aim of deciphering the peculiar orbital architecture of the system. We show that TOI-178 harbours at least six planets in the super-Earth to mini-Neptune regimes, with radii ranging from
1.152(-0.070)(+0.073)</textual-form> 1.152-0.070+0.073 to 2.87(-0.13)(+0.14)</textual-form> 2.87-0.13+0.14 Earth radii and periods of 1.91, 3.24, 6.56, 9.96, 15.23, and 20.71 days. All planets but the innermost one form a 2:4:6:9:12 chain of Laplace resonances, and the planetary densities show important variations from planet to planet, jumping from 1.02(-0.23)(+0.28)</textual-form> 1.02-0.23+0.28 to 0.177(-0.061)(+0.055)</textual-form> 0.177-0.061+0.055 times the Earth's density between planets c and d. Using Bayesian interior structure retrieval models, we show that the amount of gas in the planets does not vary in a monotonous way, contrary to what one would expect from simple formation and evolution models and unlike other known systems in a chain of Laplace resonances. The brightness of TOI-178 (H = 8.76 mag, J = 9.37 mag, V = 11.95 mag) allows for a precise characterisation of its orbital architecture as well as of the physical nature of the six presently known transiting planets it harbours. The peculiar orbital configuration and the diversity in average density among the planets in the system will enable the study of interior planetary structures and atmospheric evolution, providing important clues on the formation of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Keywords: HOT SUPER-EARTHS; TESS INPUT CATALOG; RADIUS DISTRIBUTION; MASS; SYSTEM; MODEL; STARS; MIGRATION; DYNAMICS; TOOL
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