Title of programme: Hunting for a Transit of a HARPS-N Known Exoplanet Target around a TESS Blend
Abstract: Since the birth of the exoplanet field, the complementarity of the transit and radial velocity (RV) techniques has been well-utilised with a key example being the transit follow-up of the RV planet; HD 209458 b. Importantly, the extended observing campaigns of RV instruments can yield detections of longer-period planets that, if transiting, can give a unique glimpse into a currently observationally rare space, see Nu2 Lupi. The HARPS-N Consortium has been conducting a decade-long survey of bright stars that yielded the discovery of the four planet system HD 219134 that was found to be transiting by Spitzer. There are several more long-period candidates that need to be followed-up with transit photometry to try to obtain a planetary radius and density. Due to TESS’s observing strategy it is unlikely to find longer-period bodies and because of the large pixel scale transits may be hidden if there is a close, bright stellar contaminant that causes blending. CHEOPS is unique and necessary to search for transits of small RV targets with contaminants that would be too shallow for ground-based instruments. We find one target with a >8 sigma RV signal on a period of 24d whose host star is part of a binary system with a separation of 18. We propose for a modest amount of time to hunt for a transit of a low-mass planet around a TESS blended target that could open up a new avenue for characterisation of Earth-like, long-period planets that could open up a new utility for CHEOPS.
Temporal Coverage
2023-03-09T00:58:51Z / 2023-03-12T14:44:00Z
Version
3.0
Mission Description
CHEOPS (Benz et al., https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-020-09679-4) is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission in partnership with Switzerland with important contributions to the payload and the ground segment from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The satellite has a single payload comprising an ultra-high precision photometer covering the 330 - 1100 nm wavelength range in a single photometric band. Observations are made as part of the Guaranteed Time Observing Programme that is formulated by the CHEOPS Science Team, and the Guest Observers Programme through which the Community at large can apply for CHEOPS time.
