THE EXOPLANET CENSUS: A GENERAL METHOD APPLIED TO KEPLER

By A. Youdin. 2011

179 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We develop a general method to fit the underlying planetary distribution function (PLDF) to exoplanet survey data. This maximum likelihood method accommodates more than one planet per star and any number of planet or target star properties. We apply the method to announced Kepler planet candidates that transit solar-type stars. The Kepler team's estimates of the detection efficiency are used and are shown to agree with theoretical predictions for an ideal transit survey. The PLDF is fit to a joint power law in planet radius, down to 0.5 R⊕, and orbital period, up to 50 days. The estimated number of planets per star in this sample is ∼0.7–1.4, where the range covers systematic uncertainties in the detection efficiency. To analyze trends in the PLDF we consider four planet samples, divided between shorter and longer periods at 7 days and between large and small radii at 3 R⊕. The size distribution changes appreciably between these four samples, revealing a relative deficit of ∼3 R⊕ planets at the shortest periods. This deficit is suggestive of preferential evaporation and sublimation of Neptune- and Saturn-like planets. If the trend and explanation hold, it would be spectacular observational support of the core accretion and migration hypotheses, and would allow refinement of these theories.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d0775914264f86678bda62378eed262444a57ceb

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Citations in the corpus

PLANETARY CANDIDATES OBSERVED BY KEPLER. III. ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST 16 MONTHS OF DATA (2012, background): “Assuming that planet sizes are distributed according to an inverse power law (Howard et al. 2012; Youdin 2011), we would expect to see a similar distribution in the detection statistics of the candidates discovered to date.”
A Technique for Extracting Highly Precise Photometry for the Two-Wheeled Kepler Mission (2014, background): “Kepler’s large exoplanet sample has led to statistical analyses of the frequency of exoplanets around solar mass stars (Howard et al. 2012; Youdin 2011; Fressin et al. 2013), around cool stars (Swift et al. 2013; Morton & Swift 2014), and in their stars’ habitable zones (Dressing & Charbonneau…”
AN EFFICIENT AUTOMATED VALIDATION PROCEDURE FOR EXOPLANET TRANSIT CANDIDATES (2012, background): “Other work indicates both that the average number of planets per star may even be >1 (Youdin 2011) and that fraction of stars with planets may also be close to unity (Cassan et al. 2012).”
The minimum-mass extrasolar nebula: in situ formation of close-in super-Earths (2012, background): “…• Ftransit ≈ 2.5% to be the geometric probability of transit averaged over a distribution of planets for which dN/d log P ∝ P1/2 between P = 7 and 100 days (Youdin 2011).1 Batalha et al. (2012) reported that N∗ = 1.8 × 103 individual stars harbor ∼2.3 × 103 planet candidates — more than 80%…”
Extracting distribution parameters from multiple uncertain observations with selection biases (2018, methodology): “This is the standard likelihood for a hierarchical analysis of an inhomogeneous Poisson process (Loredo & Wasserman 1995; Hogg et al. 2010; Mandel 2010; Youdin 2011; ForemanMackey et al. 2014; Farr et al. 2015; Barrett et al. 2018).”
They are small worlds after all: revised properties of Kepler M dwarf stars and their planets (2015, background): “Many analyses have reconstructed the planet population around the solar-type stars observed by Kepler (Youdin 2011; Howard et al. 2012; Petigura, Howard & Marcy 2013; Foreman-Mackey, Hogg & Morton 2014; Silburt, Gaidos & Wu 2015; Burke et al. 2015).”
A PLATEAU IN THE PLANET POPULATION BELOW TWICE THE SIZE OF EARTH (2013, methodology): “H12 and Youdin (2011) noted falling planet occurrence for periods shorter than ∼ 7 days.”
The Derivation, Properties, and Value of Kepler’s Combined Differential Photometric Precision (2012, background): “…et al. 2012)—we are now able to shift towards broader analysis of the underlying planetary populations (Borucki et al. 2011a; Howard et al. 2011; Youdin 2011; Catanzarite & Shao 2011) and trends, such as comparing single planet candidate systems to those with multiple planet candidates…”
MIGRATION THEN ASSEMBLY: FORMATION OF NEPTUNE-MASS PLANETS INSIDE 1 AU (2011, background): “This will be quantitatively tested as more low-mass planets are found, but already finds some statistical support in the planet candidates uncovered by Kepler (Howard et al. 2011; Wolfgang & Laughlin 2011; Youdin 2011).”
The Evaporation Valley in the Kepler Planets (2017, background): “Specifically, the most common type of exoplanets are smaller than Neptune (.4 R⊕, e.g., Youdin 2011; Howard et al. 2012; Batalha et al. 2013; Petigura et al. 2013; Burke et al. 2014; Morton et al. 2016) and have masses of a few to tens of Earth masses.”
A FRAMEWORK FOR CHARACTERIZING THE ATMOSPHERES OF LOW-MASS LOW-DENSITY TRANSITING PLANETS (2013, methodology): “The ubiquity of these planets has now been shown from Kepler data (Howard et al. 2012; Youdin 2011; Fressin et al. 2013; Dressing & Charbonneau 2013; Morton & Swift 2013).”
A STELLAR-MASS-DEPENDENT DROP IN PLANET OCCURRENCE RATES (2014, background): “In general, the planet occurrence rate increases with distance from the star up to an orbital period of ∼10 days (Howard et al. 2012), and becomes flat further out (Youdin 2011; Catanzarite & Shao 2011; Traub 2012; Dong & Zhu 2013; Silburt et al. 2014).”
THE OCCURRENCE OF POTENTIALLY HABITABLE PLANETS ORBITING M DWARFS ESTIMATED FROM THE FULL KEPLER DATASET AND AN EMPIRICAL MEASUREMENT OF THE DETECTION SENSITIVITY (2015, methodology): “Youdin (2011) used the search completeness estimates from Howard et al. (2012) to model the planet occurrence rate around Sun-like stars by a joint powerlaw in orbital period and planet radius.”
The California-Kepler Survey. IV. Metal-rich Stars Host a Greater Diversity of Planets (2017, methodology): “…11 summarizes our findings: stellar metallicity is associated with the occurrence of hot planets (P < 10 days) 11 A non-exhaustive list includes: Youdin (2011); Catanzarite & Shao (2011); Traub (2012); Howard et al. (2012); Fressin et al. (2013); Dong & Zhu (2013); Petigura et al. (2013);…”
The Occurrence and Architecture of Exoplanetary Systems (2014, result): “The flat distribution of planet occurrence in logP , and the relative deficit of planets inward of P <∼ 10 d, were seen initially by Howard et al. (2012) and supported by other studies, including those cited above as well as Youdin (2011), Dong & Zhu (2013), and Silburt, Gaidos & Wu (2014).”
Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars (2013, unknown): “our search in orbital period to P= 0.5–400 days. S5 Table S1. TERRA Grid Search Parameters P 1 P 2 Trial Transit Duration ( T) days days long cadence measurements 5.0 7.7 [3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11] 7.7 12.0 [4, 5, 7, 9, 13] 12.0 18.6 [4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15] 18.6 28.9 [5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 17] 28.9 44.7 [6, 8, 11,”