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BEBOP II: sensitivity to sub-Saturn circumbinary planets using radial-velocities

M. R. Standing, A. H. M. J. Triaud, J. P. Faria, D. Martin, I. Boisse, A. C. M. Correia, M. Deleuil, G. Dransfield, M. Gillon, G. Hébrard, C. Hellier, V. Kunovac, P. F. L. Maxted, R. A. Mardling, A. Santerne, L. Sairam, S. Udry

Abstract
BEBOP is a radial-velocity survey that monitors a sample of single-lined eclipsing binaries, in search of circumbinary planets by using high-resolution spectrographs. Here, we describe and test the methods we use to identify planetary signals within the BEBOP data and establish how we quantify our sensitivity to circumbinary planets by producing detection limits. This process is made easier and more robust by using a diffusive nested sampler. In the process of testing our methods, we notice that contrary to popular wisdom, assuming circular orbits in calculating detection limits for a radial-velocity survey provides overoptimistic detection limits by up to 40 per cent in semi-amplitude with implications for all radial-velocity surveys. We perform example analyses using three BEBOP targets from our Southern HARPS survey. We demonstrate for the first time a repeated ability to reach a residual root mean squared scatter of 3ms−1 (after removing the binary signal), and find that we are sensitive to circumbinary planets with masses down to that of Neptune and Saturn, for orbital periods up to 1000d⁠.

Keywords
techniques: radial velocities, planets and satellites: detection, binaries: eclipsing, stars: low-mass

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume 511, Issue 3, Page 3571
2022 April

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Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia COMPETE 2020 PORTUGAL 2020 União Europeia