Minimum number of observations for exoplanet orbit determination

Andrew Horning; Rhonda Morgan; Eric Nielson

doi:10.1117/12.2529741

16 September 2019 Minimum number of observations for exoplanet orbit determination

Andrew Horning, Rhonda Morgan, Eric Nielson

Proceedings Volume 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX; 111171C (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2529741
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2019, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Accurate characterization of exoplanet orbits requires multiple observations made over one or more orbital periods. We use a rejection sampling algorithm to study how uncertainty in the observation data manifests in the computed orbital parameters and how this uncertainty depends on the number and spacing of observations. We find that 3 observations equally spaced over at least one half of an orbital period robustly reduces the uncertainty in the semi-major axis and eccentricity to below 10%. We also study modifications of this revisit strategy in the presence of a central obscuration and show how null observations may still be leveraged to constrain a detected exoplanets orbital parameters. Finally, we suggest a method for incorporating photometric data into the rejection sampling framework to break degeneracy in the orbit fitting procedure and further constrain the orbital parameters.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Andrew Horning, Rhonda Morgan, and Eric Nielson "Minimum number of observations for exoplanet orbit determination", Proc. SPIE 11117, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets IX, 111171C (16 September 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2529741

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