The KELT Follow-up Network and Transit False-positive Catalog: Pre-vetted False Positives for TESS

Karen A. Collins, Kevin I. Collins, Joshua Pepper, Jonathan Labadie-Bartz, Keivan G. Stassun, B. Scott Gaudi, Daniel Bayliss, Joao Bento, Knicole D. ColOn, Dax Feliz, David James, Marshall C. Johnson, Rudolf B. Kuhn, Michael B. Lund, Matthew T. Penny, Joseph E. Rodriguez, Robert J. Siverd, Daniel J. Stevens, Xinyu Yao, George ZhouMundra Akshay, Giulio F. Aldi, Cliff Ashcraft, Supachai Awiphan, Bzgür Baştürk, David Baker, Thomas G. Beatty, Paul Benni, Perry Berlind, G. Bruce Berriman, Zach Berta-Thompson, Allyson Bieryla, Valerio Bozza, Sebastiano Calchi Novati, Michael L. Calkins, Jenna M. Cann, David R. Ciardi, Ian R. Clark, William D. Cochran, David H. Cohen, Dennis Conti, Justin R. Crepp, Ivan A. Curtis, Giuseppe D'Ago, Kenny A. Diazeguigure, Courtney D. Dressing, Franky Dubois, Erica Ellingson, Tyler G. Ellis, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, Phil Evans, Alison Friedli, Akihiko Fukui, Benjamin J. Fulton, Erica J. Gonzales, John C. Good, Joao Gregorio, Tolga Gumusayak, Daniel A. Hancock, Caleb K. Harada, Rhodes Hart, Eric G. Hintz, Hannah Jang-Condell, Elizabeth J. Jeffery, Eric L.N. Jensen, Emiliano Jofré, Michael D. Joner, Aman Kar, David H. Kasper, Burak Keten, John F. Kielkopf, Siramas Komonjinda, Cliff Kotnik, David W. Latham, Jacob Leuquire, Tiffany R. Lewis, Ludwig Logie, Simon J. Lowther, Phillip J. Macqueen, Trevor J. Martin, Dimitri Mawet, Kim K. McLeod, Gabriel Murawski, Norio Narita, Jim Nordhausen, Thomas E. Oberst, Caroline Odden, Peter A. Panka, Romina Petrucci, Peter Plavchan, Samuel N. Quinn, Steve Rau, Phillip A. Reed, Howard Relles, Joe P. Renaud, Gaetano Scarpetta, Rebecca L. Sorber, Alex D. Spencer, Michelle Spencer, Denise C. Stephens, Chris Stockdale, Thiam Guan Tan, Mark Trueblood, Patricia Trueblood, Siegfried Vanaverbeke, Steven Villanueva, Elizabeth M. Warner, Mary Lou West, Selcuk Yalcinkaya, Rex Yeigh, Roberto Zambelli

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Abstract

The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project has been conducting a photometric survey of transiting planets orbiting bright stars for over 10 years. The KELT images have a pixel scale of ∼23″ pixel-1 - very similar to that of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) - as well as a large point-spread function, and the KELT reduction pipeline uses a weighted photometric aperture with radius 3′. At this angular scale, multiple stars are typically blended in the photometric apertures. In order to identify false positives and confirm transiting exoplanets, we have assembled a follow-up network (KELT-FUN) to conduct imaging with spatial resolution, cadence, and photometric precision higher than the KELT telescopes, as well as spectroscopic observations of the candidate host stars. The KELT-FUN team has followed-up over 1600 planet candidates since 2011, resulting in more than 20 planet discoveries. Excluding ∼450 false alarms of non-astrophysical origin (i.e., instrumental noise or systematics), we present an all-sky catalog of the 1128 bright stars (6 < V < 13) that show transit-like features in the KELT light curves, but which were subsequently determined to be astrophysical false positives (FPs) after photometric and/or spectroscopic follow-up observations. The KELT-FUN team continues to pursue KELT and other planet candidates and will eventually follow up certain classes of TESS candidates. The KELT FP catalog will help minimize the duplication of follow-up observations by current and future transit surveys such as TESS.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number234
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume156
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2018
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

Keywords

  • methods: observational
  • techniques: photometric
  • techniques: radial velocities
  • techniques: spectroscopic

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