Bibcode
Deeg, H. J.
Referencia bibliográfica
In: Second Eddington Workshop: Stellar structure and habitable planet finding, 9 - 11 April 2003, Palermo, Italy. Edited by F. Favata, S. Aigrain and A. Wilson. ESA SP-538, Noordwijk: ESA Publications Division, ISBN 92-9092-848-4, 2004, p. 231 - 237
Advertised on:
1
2004
Número de citas
2
Número de citas referidas
2
Descripción
In a recent preprint, Pepper et al. (2002) evaluate the sensitivity of
photon-noise limited transit searches for habitable planets. They
conclude that these searches have the largest chance of success if they
are optimized toward the surveying of M stars. Such an optimisation
implies several constraints and trade-offs. The principal one is that M
star surveys need to observe at fainter magnitudes than surveys of
solar-like stars. The required shift to fainter magnitudes is in
principle possible, as M stars require less photometric precision in
order to detect transits of their habitable planets. However, relatively
higher noise from sky-background and increased crowding at fainter
magnitudes requires the employment of optics with adequately small
point-spread functions, with consequences on the observable dynamic
range. A review of the merit of this strategy is given, first in terms
of habitability of M star planets. Though being tidally locked to the
central star, these planets are valuable and interesting targets, and
can still potentially host life. Second, potential implications for the
Eddington mission are discussed, and estimates for the noise sources and
stellar crowding are given. A preliminary recommendation is to optimise
Eddington for mid-K stars, employing moderately smaller apertures. Such
an optimisation should allow Eddington to access both neighbouring
specral classes (G and M) as well, and habitable planets with and
without tidal locking may be detected.