Completeness of Imaging Surveys for Eccentric Exoplanets

Abstract

The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at small angular separations. Planets in eccentric orbits will thus move in and out of the detectable region around a star as a function of time. Here we use the known diversity of orbital eccentricities to determine the range of orbits which may lie beneath the detection threshold of current surveys. We quantify the percentage of the orbit which yields a detectable signature as a function of semi-major axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination and estimate the fraction of planets which likely remain hidden by the flux of the host star.

6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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• The Direct Detectability of Giant Exoplanets in the Optical
• Transits of Known Planets Orbiting a Naked-Eye Star
• Evidence for Reflected Light from the Most Eccentric Exoplanet Known
• Joint Radial Velocity and Direct Imaging Planet Yield Calculations: I. Self-consistent Planet Populations
• Maximum Angular Separation Epochs for Exoplanet Imaging Observations
• On the Orbital Inclination of Proxima Centauri b
• Direct Imaging of Exoplanets Beyond the Radial Velocity Limit: Application to the HD 134987 System
• Speckle Imaging Characterization of Radial Velocity Exoplanet Systems
• HD 83443c: A highly eccentric giant planet on a 22-year orbit
• Discovery of a Compact Companion to a Nearby Star
• Revised Properties and Dynamical History for the HD 17156 System
• Searching for substellar companion candidates with Gaia. II. A catalog of 9,698 planet candidate solar-type hosts