Transiting Planets with LSST I: Potential for LSST Exoplanet Detection

Abstract

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has been designed in order to satisfy several different scientific objectives that can be addressed by a ten-year synoptic sky survey. However, LSST will also provide a large amount of data that can then be exploited for additional science beyond its primary goals. We demonstrate the potential of using LSST data to search for transiting exoplanets, and in particular to find planets orbiting host stars that are members of stellar populations that have been less thoroughly probed by current exoplanet surveys. We find that existing algorithms can detect in simulated LSST light curves the transits of Hot Jupiters around solar-type stars, Hot Neptunes around K dwarfs, and planets orbiting stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We also show that LSST would have the sensitivity to potentially detect Super-Earths orbiting red dwarfs, including those in habitable zone orbits, if they are present in some fields that LSST will observe. From these results, we make the case that LSST has the ability to provide a valuable contribution to exoplanet science.

arXiv comment18 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables; accepted to Astronomical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Transiting Planets with LSST II. Period Detection of Planets Orbiting 1 Solar Mass Hosts
• On the detectability of transiting planets orbiting white dwarfs using LSST
• A Search for short-period Rocky Planets around WDs with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS)
• Constraining planet formation around 6$M_{\odot }$-8$M_{\odot }$ stars
• Predicting the Yield of Small Transiting Exoplanets around Mid-M and Ultra-Cool Dwarfs in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey
• TESS Timings of 31 Hot Jupiters with Ephemeris Uncertainties
• Searching for Extragalactic Exoplanetary Systems: the Curious Case of BD+20 2457
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• Metrics for Optimization of Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Observations of Stellar Variables and Transients
• A Higher Cadence Subsurvey Located in the Galactic Plane
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• Searching for technosignatures in exoplanetary systems with current and future missions