The XO Planetary Survey Project - Astrophysical False Positives

TL;DR

The paper compiles a list of 69 astrophysical false positives from the XO survey, aiding future observations and modeling, and reports new binary star systems and mass estimations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive list of false positives from the XO survey and reports new binary systems, enhancing follow-up efficiency and stellar modeling.

Findings

List of 69 false positives identified in the XO survey.

Discovery of three new spectroscopic double-line binaries.

Mass function estimations for 15 single-lined binaries.

Abstract

Searches for planetary transits find many astrophysical false positives as a by-product. There are four main types analyzed in the literature: a grazing-incidence eclipsing binary star, an eclipsing binary star with a small radius companion star, a blend of one or more stars with an unrelated eclipsing binary star, and a physical triple star system. We present a list of 69 astrophysical false positives that had been identified as candidates of transiting planets of the on-going XO survey. This list may be useful in order to avoid redundant observation and characterization of these particular candidates independently identified by other wide-field searches for transiting planets. The list may be useful for those modeling the yield of the XO survey and surveys similar to it. Subsequent observations of some of the listed stars may improve mass-radius relations, especially for low-mass stars. From the candidates exhibiting eclipses, we report three new spectroscopic double-line binaries and give mass function estimations for 15 single lined spectroscopic binaries.