Reliable detection of small long-period planets in Kepler data (Oryna Ivashtenko, Weizmann Inst.) скачать в хорошем качестве

Reliable detection of small long-period planets in Kepler data (Oryna Ivashtenko, Weizmann Inst.)

The Kepler spacecraft provided unprecedented photometric precision, enabling the detection of Earth-like planets. However, the final Kepler catalog lacks sufficient reliability for small, long-period planets, complicating estimates of occurrence rates in this regime. A major source of this problem is the difficulty in distinguishing genuine but faint planetary signals from systematic false alarms—spurious detections caused by correlated, non-Gaussian noise. We developed an independent search and vetting pipeline that addresses this noise structure using tailored statistical methods, providing a clean background distribution free from the false alarm tail. The pipeline was applied to the entire Kepler dataset, yielding a list of planetary candidates. For each candidate, we estimated its probability of being a real astrophysical periodic signal, using empirical per-target background estimation and injection-recovery campaign. In this talk, I will explain the methodology behind this pipeline and present the planetary candidates that obtained a high probability of being real. I will demonstrate the pipeline reliability and its detection efficiency. Next, I will outline the future steps of the project and explain how these results will be used in the estimation of occurrence rates.