Detecting "Temperate" Jupiters: The Prospects of Searching for Transiting Gas Giants in Habitability Zones

TL;DR

This study evaluates how observing windows and collaboration between transit surveys impact the detection rates of transiting gas giants, especially in habitability zones, highlighting the importance of combined data for improved detection.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of how collaboration between wide-field transit surveys enhances the likelihood of detecting intermediate-period transiting planets.

Findings

Combining survey data increases detection probability by up to 40%.

50-90% of planets with 14-150 day periods should be observed at least once.

Collaborative observations can lead to 50-100% detection of planets with periods less than 20 days.

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of observing windows on detecting transiting planets by calculating the fraction of planets with a given period that have zero, one (single), two (double), or $\ge$3 (multiple) transits occurring while observations are being taken. We also investigate the effects of collaboration by performing the same calculations with combined observing times from two wide-field transit survey groups. For a representative field of the 2004 observing season, both XO and SuperWASP experienced an increase in single and double transit events by up to 20-40% for planets with periods 14 < P < 150 days when collaborating by sharing data. For the XO Project using its data alone, between 20-40% of planets with periods 14-150 days should have been observed at least once. For the SuperWASP Project, 50-90% of planets with periods between 14-150 days should have been observed at least once. If XO and SuperWASP combined their observations, 50-100% of planets with periods less than 20 days should be observed three or more times. We find that in general wide-field transit surveys have selected appropriate observing strategies to observe a significant fraction of transiting giant planets with semimajor axes larger than the Hot Jupiter regime. The actual number of intermediate-period transiting planets that are detected depends upon their true semimajor axis distribution and the signal-to-noise of the data.