How Rare are TESS Free-Floating Planets?

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Yang, Hongjing, Zang, Weicheng, Gan, Tianjun, Kuang, Renkun, Gould, Andrew, Mao, Shude
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Yang, Hongjing
Zang, Weicheng
Gan, Tianjun
Kuang, Renkun
Gould, Andrew
Mao, Shude
author_facet Yang, Hongjing
Zang, Weicheng
Gan, Tianjun
Kuang, Renkun
Gould, Andrew
Mao, Shude
contents Recently, Kunimoto et al. claimed that a short-lived signal in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Sector 61 database was possibly caused by a microlensing event with a terrestrial-mass free-floating planet (FFP) lens. In this study, we investigate TESS's ability to detect microlensing FFPs by considering the detailed source information (e.g., distance and radius), the TESS photometric accuracy, and finite-source effects. Using the FFP mass function from microlensing surveys toward the Galactic bulge, we find that only $0.0018$ microlensing events are expected to be detected in TESS Sector 61 for the entire planetary mass range. The reported signal is unlikely to be a real microlensing event, which is consistent with the evidence from the long-term OGLE data that the signal was likely due to a stellar flare. By extrapolating our result to fainter stars until $T = 16$ mag and adopting a possible optimized search algorithm, we find that only $\sim 1$ FFP events can be detected in the entire TESS mission within the first 7 years. Significant improvments of our understanding of FFPs still requires future satellite missions, such as Roman and Earth 2.0, which can detect thousands of FFPs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_02279
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How Rare are TESS Free-Floating Planets?
Yang, Hongjing
Zang, Weicheng
Gan, Tianjun
Kuang, Renkun
Gould, Andrew
Mao, Shude
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Recently, Kunimoto et al. claimed that a short-lived signal in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Sector 61 database was possibly caused by a microlensing event with a terrestrial-mass free-floating planet (FFP) lens. In this study, we investigate TESS's ability to detect microlensing FFPs by considering the detailed source information (e.g., distance and radius), the TESS photometric accuracy, and finite-source effects. Using the FFP mass function from microlensing surveys toward the Galactic bulge, we find that only $0.0018$ microlensing events are expected to be detected in TESS Sector 61 for the entire planetary mass range. The reported signal is unlikely to be a real microlensing event, which is consistent with the evidence from the long-term OGLE data that the signal was likely due to a stellar flare. By extrapolating our result to fainter stars until $T = 16$ mag and adopting a possible optimized search algorithm, we find that only $\sim 1$ FFP events can be detected in the entire TESS mission within the first 7 years. Significant improvments of our understanding of FFPs still requires future satellite missions, such as Roman and Earth 2.0, which can detect thousands of FFPs.
title How Rare are TESS Free-Floating Planets?
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.02279