Systematics Correction and Cluster Science with Kepler-2
Stellar, Exoplanet and Galactic Science from Massive, High-precision Variability Surveys
Date Submitted
2015-04-08 18:39:31
Benjamin Pope
University of Oxford
Suzanne Aigrain (Oxford), Steve Roberts (Oxford), Simon Hodgkin (Cambridge), Mike Irwin (Cambridge), James Lewis (Cambridge), Hannu Parviainen (Oxford), Ed Gillen (Oxford)
The Kepler-2 ('K2') mission uses the Kepler satellite in two-wheeled mode, stabilized by solar radiation to look at fields along the ecliptic. This brings both challenges and opportunities: dramatically reduced pointing stability necessitates extensive correction of systematics in post-processing, and shorter ~80-day Campaigns limit the time baseline for finding exoplanets. On the other hand, the ecliptic plane is rich in bright stars and especially young star clusters, such as the Pleiades, Hyades, M35, rho Ophiuchi and Upper Scorpius. These permit studies of nearby bright stars, suitable for ground-based followup, and stars with precisely known ages, allowing us to test models of stellar evolution. In this talk I will discuss our work using Gaussian Processes for systematics correction, achieving photometric precision around ~ 40 ppm on bright stars, significantly better than the CoRoT mission and within a factor of several of the original Kepler run; and also our ongoing work on eclipsing binaries and planets in these young star clusters.
Schedule
id
date time
09:00 - 10:30
09:18
Abstract
Systematics Correction and Cluster Science with Kepler-2