Geosciences Dept. Seminar: The Perturbative Approach to Transit Variations

Abstract:

Transit timing variations (TTVs) proved to be a valuable tool for the study of exoplanetary architectures, and transit impact-parameter (b) variations (hereafter TbV) are a newer and promising tool. Unfortunately, the usual procedure for measuring both TTVs and TbVs is biased to long period planets and deep transits (i.e. individually-significant events) whereas most transiting planets have short periods and shallow transits. We remove these biases completely using a nouvelle technique called Perturbative Approach (hereafter PA). While PA is not sensitive to the small minority of large-amplitude TTVs, it works well for medium-amplitude TTVs (smaller than the transit duration) and very well for low-amplitude TTVs (smaller than the ingress/egress duration). Using PA greatly improves the speed of TTV/TbV analysis making it suitable for future (and past) large transit surveys, and also improves on the sensitivity of TTV detection relative to the usual procedure, allowing the reliable detection of TTV signal not otherwise detectable. In this talk we will introduce the PA technique and present some of its results. 

Seminar Organizer: Dr. Ravit Heled