Vetting Kepler Planet Candidates with Multi-Color Photometry from the GTC: Identification of an Eclipsing Binary Star Near KOI 565

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how multi-color photometry from the GTC can effectively identify false positives in Kepler planet candidate signals, specifically distinguishing background eclipsing binaries from true planetary transits.

Contribution

We introduce a method using near-simultaneous multi-color photometry to differentiate between planetary transits and false positives like eclipsing binaries in Kepler data.

Findings

Identified a background eclipsing binary near KOI 565 as the source of the transit signal.

Showed that multi-color photometry can rule out planetary nature of certain Kepler candidates.

Proposed a complementary approach to existing follow-up techniques for exoplanet validation.

Abstract

We report the discovery of an eclipsing binary star (KIC 7025851) near KOI 565 (KIC 7025846) based on photometric observations of KOI 565 and several nearby stars acquired in two narrow bandpasses (790.2 and 794.3\pm2.0 nm) nearly-simultaneously with the GTC/OSIRIS. We use the individual photometry in each bandpass as well as the colors of KOI 565 and other nearby stars to determine that the source of the transit signal initially detected by Kepler is not due to a super-Earth-size planet around KOI 565. Instead, we find the source to be a background eclipsing binary star located \sim15 arcsec to the North of KOI 565. We discuss future prospects for using high-precision multi-color photometry from the GTC to determine whether additional Kepler planet candidates have a planetary nature or are instead false positives (e.g., foreground or background eclipsing binaries or hierarchical triple systems). Our approach is complementary to multi-color follow-up observations of Kepler planet candidates currently being conducted with the Spitzer space telescope in the infrared as well as to other follow-up techniques.