Don't FORCES It - Toward an occurrence rate of transiting TESS CBPs

  • CART Astrophysics Seminar Series

November 7, 2024 2:00 PM
PAIS 3205

Host:
Diana Dragomir
Presenter:
Dominic Oddo
Circumbinary planets (CBPs; planets orbiting outside of both stars in a tight stellar binary) offer a unique and insightful perspective to planetary systems in our galaxy. While planets in tight binaries were initially not expected to be able to form, the discovery of transiting CBPs tells us of the robustness of planet formation. This is especially important given 1. the propensity for stars to exist in binaries or higher-order systems, and 2. the bias against binaries in planet-host target selection. There are many unresolved questions about CBPs, and increasing the sample of known transiting CBPs will provide some answers. Recently, NASA's TESS mission has vastly expanded the sample of observed eclipsing binaries, and I am searching for transiting CBPs in these systems. In this talk, I will first motivate the study of transiting CBPs, with special focus on new science with M+M binaries. I will then discuss my work to characterize eclipsing binaries and outline my transit search methodology, which I have termed "FORCES". I will present current progress towards finding the occurrence rate of transiting CBPs with TESS, which is the subject of my PhD thesis.

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