Alexandre Santerne
CAUP

Abstract
The CoRoT and Kepler space missions, designed to find small planets that transit in front of their star, discovered more than 3000 transiting planet-candidates. They are so-called "candidates" since various configuration of stellar systems might mimic exactly the same signal as a transit of a planet (so-called "false positives"). To distinguish a planet from a stellar systems, the usual way is to measure the mass of the transiting objects using high-accuracy spectrographs (e.g., SOPHIE@OHP-1.93m or HARPS-N@TNG-3.6m). But current spectrographs are not sensitive enough to characterize small planets from the CoRoT or Kepler surveys. A new technique has been developed for these planets. This technique consists on statistically validating the planet by rejecting all false-positive scenarios. In this seminar, I will first present the context of the transiting planets and the false-positive issue. Then, I will introduce the planet-validation technique and present the PASTIS tool in this framework. I will also discuss future developments and use of the PASTIS tool that can validate planets down to the size of the Earth.

2013 April 15, 13:30

IA/U.Porto
Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (Auditorium)
Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto