Octofitter: Fast, Flexible, and Accurate Orbit Modeling to Detect Exoplanets
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- University of Victoria, BC (Canada)
- National Research Council of Canada Herzberg, Victoria (Canada)
- National Research Council of Canada Herzberg, Victoria (Canada); University of Victoria, BC (Canada)
- Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (United States)
- University College London (United Kingdom)
- University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- University of Victoria, BC (Canada); National Research Council of Canada Herzberg, Victoria (Canada)
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
- Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States)
- Yale University, New Haven, CT (United States)
As next-generation imaging instruments and interferometers search for planets closer to their stars, they must contend with increasing orbital motion and longer integration times. These compounding effects make it difficult to detect faint planets but also present an opportunity. Increased orbital motion makes it possible to move the search for planets into the orbital domain, where direct images can be freely combined with the radial velocity and proper motion anomaly, even without a confirmed detection in any single epoch. In this paper, we present a fast and differentiable multimethod orbit-modeling and planet detection code called Octofitter. This code is designed to be highly modular and allows users to easily adjust priors, change parameterizations, and specify arbitrary function relations between the parameters of one or more planets. Octofitter further supplies tools for examining model outputs including prior and posterior predictive checks and simulation-based calibration. We demonstrate the capabilities of Octofitter on real and simulated data from different instruments and methods, including HD 91312, simulated JWST/NIRISS aperture masking interferometry observations, radial velocity curves, and grids of images from the Gemini Planet Imager. We show that Octofitter can reliably recover faint planets in long sequences of images with arbitrary orbital motion. This publicly available tool will enable the broad application of multiepoch and multimethod exoplanet detection, which could improve how future targeted ground- and space-based surveys are performed. Finally, its rapid convergence makes it a useful addition to the existing ecosystem of tools for modeling the orbits of directly imaged planets.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 2278768
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL--JRNL-858524; {"Journal ID: ISSN 0004-6256",1089115}
- Journal Information:
- The Astronomical Journal, Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 166; ISSN 0004-6256
- Publisher:
- IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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