Planetary Candidates from the First Year of the K2 Mission

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of 234 planetary candidates from the first year of the K2 mission, analyzing data from over 59,000 targets and providing extensive data products for the scientific community.

Contribution

First comprehensive analysis of K2's initial year data, identifying new planetary candidates and releasing associated data for further research.

Findings

234 planetary candidates detected

Candidates range from gas giants to Earth-sized planets

Orbital periods vary from hours to over a month

Abstract

The Kepler Space Telescope is currently searching for planets transiting stars along the ecliptic plane as part of its extended K2 mission. We processed the publicly released data from the first year of K2 observations (Campaigns 0, 1, 2, and 3) and searched for periodic eclipse signals consistent with planetary transits. Out of 59,174 targets we searched, we detect 234 planetary candidates around 208 stars. These candidates range in size from gas giants to smaller than the Earth, and range in orbital periods from hours to over a month. We conducted initial reconnaissance spectroscopy of 68 of the brighter candidate host stars, and present high resolution optical spectra for these stars. We make all of our data products, including light curves, spectra, and vetting diagnostics available to users online.