Improving Transit Predictions of Known Exoplanets with TERMS

TL;DR

The paper discusses the TERMS project, which refines orbital parameters of known exoplanets to improve transit predictions, enabling the detection of long-period planets through targeted photometric follow-up.

Contribution

It introduces a method to refine planetary orbital parameters, reducing transit window sizes and making long-period exoplanets accessible for observation.

Findings

Enhanced transit prediction accuracy for long-period exoplanets

Increased feasibility of detecting transits in previously challenging regimes

Development of a monitoring project targeting predicted transit times

Abstract

Transiting planet discoveries have largely 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 that is monitoring these host stars at predicted transit times.