Accounting for velocity jitter in planet search surveys
Abstract
Description
The role of radial velocity (RV) jitter in extrasolar planet search surveys is discussed. Based on the maximum likelihood principle, improved statistical algorithms for RV fitting and period search are developed. These algorithms incorporate a built-in jitter determination, so that resulting estimations of planetary parameters account for this jitter automatically. This approach is applied to RV data for several extrasolar planetary systems. It is shown that many RV planet search surveys suffer from periodic systematic errors which increase effective RV jitter and can lead to erroneous conclusions. For instance, the planet candidate HD74156 d may be a false detection made due to annual systematic errors.
10 pages, 1 figure, 1 table; accepted to MNRAS; 4th version due to a few extra minor corrections in Sect.11 and Tab.1
10 pages, 1 figure, 1 table; accepted to MNRAS; 4th version due to a few extra minor corrections in Sect.11 and Tab.1