First Results from the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS)

TL;DR

The TERMS project refines orbital parameters of long-period exoplanets to enable photometric follow-up during predicted transits, expanding the scope of transiting planet studies beyond short-period systems.

Contribution

This paper introduces the TERMS survey, a novel approach to monitor and refine the orbits of long-period exoplanets for transit detection.

Findings

Refined orbital parameters for target exoplanets.

Identification of potential long-period transiting planets.

Enhanced transit window predictions for follow-up observations.

Abstract

Transiting planet discoveries have yielded a plethora of information towards understanding the structure and atmospheres of extra-solar planets. These discoveries have been restricted to the short-period or low-periastron distance regimes due to the bias inherent in the geometric transit probability. Through the refinement of planetary orbital parameters, and hence reducing the size of transit windows, long-period planets become feasible targets for photometric follow-up. Here we describe the TERMS project which is monitoring these host stars at predicted transit times.