The Detection and Exploration of Planets from the Trans‐atlantic Exoplanet Survey

Abstract

The Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) is a network of three small-aperture telescopes dedicated to searching the skies for new transiting extrasolar gas giants. The TrES team have discovered two of the 14 known transiting exoplanets. We discuss the detection and exploration of these nearby planets and present the latest observations of TrES-2. TrES-2 is the most massive of the nearby transiting planets, and the first transiting planet found within the field of view of the NASA Kepler transit-search mission. TrES was motivated by our incomplete understanding of the structure and composition of highly-insolated gas giants, and is one of several wide-field photometric campaigns to find new transiting planets. Astrophysical false positives, such as grazing eclipsing binaries, are the dominant source of transit-like periodic signals from these campaigns. Hence follow-up observations are required for all planet candidates. In particular, recent experience has highlighted the need for careful analysis to eliminate astronomical systems where light from a faint eclipsing binary is blended with that from a bright star. We present here examples of the procedure followed by the TrES network to identify false positive candidates. This material