Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0612441

From: Alexis Smith [view email]

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:35:35 GMT (65kb)

The colour of noise in SuperWASP data and the implications for finding extra-solar planets

Authors: A. M. S. Smith, A. Collier Cameron, D. J. Christian, W. I. Clarkson, B. Enoch, A. Evans, C. A. Haswell, C. Hellier, K. Horne, J. Irwin, S. R. Kane, T. A. Lister, A. J. Norton, N. Parley, D. L. Pollacco, R. Ryans, I. Skillen, R. A. Street, A. H. M. J. Triaud, R. G. West, P. J. Wheatley, D. M. Wilson

Comments: 6 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the PASP proceedings of "Transiting Extrasolar Planets Workshop" MPIA Heidelberg Germany, 25th-28th September 2006. Eds: Cristina Afonso, David Weldrake & Thomas Henning

A recent study demonstrated that there is significant covariance structure in the noise on data from ground-based photometric surveys designed to detect transiting extrasolar planets. Such correlation in the noise has often been overlooked, especially when predicting the number of planets a particular survey is likely to find. Indeed, the shortfall in the number of transiting extrasolar planets discovered by such surveys seems to be explained by co-variance in the noise. We analyse SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) data and determine that there is a significant amount of correlated systematic noise present. After modelling the potential planet catch, we conclude that this noise places a significant limit on the number of planets that SuperWASP is likely to detect; and that the best way to boost the signal-to-noise ratio and limit the impact of co-variant noise is to increase the number of observed transits for each candidate transiting planet.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612441