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The Monitor project: searching for occultations in young open clusters

Aigrain, S. ; Hodgkin, S. ; Irwin, J. ; Hebb, L. ; Irwin, M. ; Favata, F. ; Moraux, E. ; Pont, F.

In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007, vol. 375, no. 1, p. 29-52

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    Titel
    • The Monitor project: searching for occultations in young open clusters
    Autor
    • Aigrain, S.. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA
    • Hodgkin, S.. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA
    • Irwin, J.. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA
    • Hebb, L.. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS
    • Irwin, M.. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA
    • Favata, F.. ESA/ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, PO Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, the Netherlands
    • Moraux, E.. Laboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire de Grenoble, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cédex 9, France
    • Pont, F.. Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève, 51 chemin des Maillettes, CH-1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
    Dokumententyp
    • Postprint
    Sprache
    • Englisch
    Veröffentlicht in
    • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007, vol. 375, no. 1, p. 29-52. Blackwell Publishing Ltd
    Andere elektronische Ausgabe
    OAI-PMH-ID
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:304507
    Summary
    The Monitor project is a photometric monitoring survey of nine young (1-200 Myr) clusters in the solar neighbourhood to search for eclipses by very low mass stars and brown dwarfs and for planetary transits in the light curves of cluster members. It began in the autumn of 2004 and uses several 2- to 4-m telescopes worldwide. We aim to calibrate the relation between age, mass, radius and where possible luminosity, from the K dwarf to the planet regime, in an age range where constraints on evolutionary models are currently very scarce. Any detection of an exoplanet in one of our youngest targets (≲10 Myr) would also provide important constraints on planet formation and migration time-scales and their relation to protoplanetary disc lifetimes. Finally, we will use the light curves of cluster members to study rotation and flaring in low-mass pre-main-sequence stars. The present paper details the motivation, science goals and observing strategy of the survey. We present a method to estimate the sensitivity and number of detections expected in each cluster, using a simple semi-analytic approach which takes into account the characteristics of the cluster and photometric observations, using (tunable) best-guess assumptions for the incidence and parameter distribution of putative companions, and we incorporate the limits imposed by radial velocity follow-up from medium and large telescopes. We use these calculations to show that the survey as a whole can be expected to detect over 100 young low and very low mass eclipsing binaries, and ∼3 transiting planets with radial velocity signatures detectable with currently available facilities