The occurrence of small, short-period planets younger than 200 Myr with TESS

The occurrence of small, short-period planets younger than 200 Myr with TESS

DRAFT VERSION APRIL 12, 2024 | SYDNEY VACH, GEORGE ZHOU, CHELSEA X. HUANG, JAMES G. ROGERS, L. G. BOUMA, STEPHANIE T. DOUGLAS, MICHELLE KUNIMOTO, ANDREW W. MANN, MADYSON G. BARBER, SAMUEL N. QUINN, DAVID W. LATHAM, ALLYSON BIERLYA, AND KAREN COLLINS
The paper by Sydney Vach investigates the occurrence rates of small, short-period planets around young stars (younger than 200 million years) using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The study focuses on planets with radii between 2 and 8 times that of Earth (mini-Neptunes) and 4 and 8 times that of Earth (super-Neptunes), with orbital periods between 1.6 and 20 days. The authors use a detection pipeline that includes detrending, transit search, and vetting processes to identify potential planet candidates. They recover all known TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) and identify four new planet candidates. The completeness of the survey is assessed through injection and recovery simulations, which show that the pipeline recovers all known TOIs and identifies new candidates. The derived occurrence rates for mini-Neptunes are 35% ± 13% from the 2-minute cadence data and 22% ± 8% from the Full Frame Image (FFI) data, while for super-Neptunes, they are 27% ± 10% and 13% ± 3%, respectively. These rates are compared with Kepler planet statistics, showing a mild increase in the occurrence of super-Neptunes and a significant increase in Neptune-sized planets with orbital periods of 6.2 to 12 days compared to their mature counterparts. The study's findings are consistent with evolutionary models that describe the early contraction of hydrogen-dominated atmospheres undergoing atmospheric escape, rather than heavier atmosphere models that predict only mild radial contraction early on. The results highlight the importance of understanding the early evolutionary stages of young planetary systems to better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets.The paper by Sydney Vach investigates the occurrence rates of small, short-period planets around young stars (younger than 200 million years) using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The study focuses on planets with radii between 2 and 8 times that of Earth (mini-Neptunes) and 4 and 8 times that of Earth (super-Neptunes), with orbital periods between 1.6 and 20 days. The authors use a detection pipeline that includes detrending, transit search, and vetting processes to identify potential planet candidates. They recover all known TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) and identify four new planet candidates. The completeness of the survey is assessed through injection and recovery simulations, which show that the pipeline recovers all known TOIs and identifies new candidates. The derived occurrence rates for mini-Neptunes are 35% ± 13% from the 2-minute cadence data and 22% ± 8% from the Full Frame Image (FFI) data, while for super-Neptunes, they are 27% ± 10% and 13% ± 3%, respectively. These rates are compared with Kepler planet statistics, showing a mild increase in the occurrence of super-Neptunes and a significant increase in Neptune-sized planets with orbital periods of 6.2 to 12 days compared to their mature counterparts. The study's findings are consistent with evolutionary models that describe the early contraction of hydrogen-dominated atmospheres undergoing atmospheric escape, rather than heavier atmosphere models that predict only mild radial contraction early on. The results highlight the importance of understanding the early evolutionary stages of young planetary systems to better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets.
Reach us at info@study.space