Detection of Potential Transit Signals in 17 Quarters of Kepler Mission Data
Abstract
We present the results of a search for potential transit signals in the full 17-quarter data set collected during Kepler's primary mission that ended on 2013 May 11, due to the on board failure of a second reaction wheel needed to maintain high precision, fixed, pointing. The search includes a total of 198,646 targets, of which 112,001 were observed in every quarter and 86,645 were observed in a subset of the 17 quarters. For the first time, this multi-quarter search is performed on data that have been fully and uniformly reprocessed through the newly released version of the Data Processing Pipeline. We find a total of 12,669 targets that contain at least one signal that meets our detection criteria: periodicity of the signal, a minimum of three transit events, an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio, and four consistency tests that suppress many false positives. Each target containing at least one transit-like pulse sequence is searched repeatedly for other signals that meet the detection criteria, indicating a multiple planet system. This multiple planet search adds an additional 7698 transit-like signatures for a total of 20,367. Comparison of this set of detected signals with a set of known and vetted transiting planet signatures in the Kepler field of view shows that the recovery rate of the search is 90.3%. We review ensemble properties of the detected signals and present various metrics useful in validating these potential planetary signals. We highlight previously undetected transit-like signatures, including several that may represent small objects in the habitable zone of their host stars.
- Publication:
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The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Pub Date:
- March 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0067-0049/217/1/18
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1501.03586
- Bibcode:
- 2015ApJS..217...18S
- Keywords:
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- planetary systems;
- planets and satellites: detection;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- ApJS 217 18 (2015)