PLANET HUNTERS: ASSESSING THE KEPLER INVENTORY OF SHORT-PERIOD PLANETS

Journal Article · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/754/2/129· OSTI ID:22039227

Schwamb, Megan E ^[1]; Lintott, Chris J; Lynn, Stuart; Smith, Arfon M; Simpson, Robert J ^[2]; Fischer, Debra A; Giguere, Matthew J; Brewer, John M ^[3]; Parrish, Michael ^[4]; Schawinski, Kevin ^[5]

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1. Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, P.O. Box 208121, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States)
2. Oxford Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)
3. Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States)
4. Adler Planetarium, 1300 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States)

We present the results from a search of data from the first 33.5 days of the Kepler science mission (Quarter 1) for exoplanet transits by the Planet Hunters citizen science project. Planet Hunters enlists members of the general public to visually identify transits in the publicly released Kepler light curves via the World Wide Web. Over 24,000 volunteers reviewed the Kepler Quarter 1 data set. We examine the abundance of {>=}2 R{sub Circled-Plus} planets on short-period (<15 days) orbits based on Planet Hunters detections. We present these results along with an analysis of the detection efficiency of human classifiers to identify planetary transits including a comparison to the Kepler inventory of planet candidates. Although performance drops rapidly for smaller radii, {>=}4 R{sub Circled-Plus} Planet Hunters {>=}85% efficient at identifying transit signals for planets with periods less than 15 days for the Kepler sample of target stars. Our high efficiency rate for simulated transits along with recovery of the majority of Kepler {>=}4 R{sub Circled-Plus} planets suggests that the Kepler inventory of {>=}4 R{sub Circled-Plus} short-period planets is nearly complete.

• OSTI ID: 22039227
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 754; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ABUNDANCE
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DETECTION
DIAGRAMS
EFFICIENCY
ORBITS
PLANETS
SATELLITES
STARS
VISIBLE RADIATION