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SUMMARY:Needle in a haystack: Distinguishing planets from false positives 
 and red noise with the Next Generation Transit Survey - Max Guenther (Camb
 ridge)
DTSTART:20161116T160000Z
DTEND:20161116T170000Z
UID:TALK68199@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ed Gillen
DESCRIPTION:The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a wide-field surv
 ey designed to detect Neptune-sized exoplanets\, operating in Paranal sinc
 e early 2016. I will first introduce a new yield simulator\, apply it to N
 GTS and discuss its outcome. Two major factors limit the survey: 1) the ac
 hieved red noise level\, which determines the sensitivity to detect small 
 planets\, and 2) the ability to identify astrophysical false positives\, w
 hich outnumber the planet yield. In particular variable background objects
  (blended in the photometric aperture) can mimic Neptune-sized transits an
 d are costly in follow-up time. They can best be identified based on the f
 act that the photometric flux is lost off-centre during an eclipse\, resul
 ting in the flux centroid shifting towards the centre of the target star. 
 Although this method has successfully been employed by the Kepler mission\
 , it has previously not been proven feasible from the ground. I will final
 ly present a new algorithm I developed for NGTS that allows detecting thes
 e centroid shifts with a precision of up to 1/1000th of a pixel. This make
 s NGTS the first ground-based transit survey ever to successfully implemen
 t this technique.
LOCATION:Martin Ryle Seminar Room\, Kavli Institute
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