Analysis of HAT-P-23 b, Qatar-1 b, WASP-2 b, and WASP-33 b with an Optimized EXOplanet Transit Interpretation Code (Abstract)

Volume 48 number 2 (2020)

Sujay Nair

Stanford Online High School, Academy Hall Floor 2 8853, 415 Broadway, Redwood City, CA 94063

Jonathan Varghese

Vista Del Lago High School, 1970 Broadstone Pkwy, Folsom, CA 95630

Kalée Tock

Stanford Online High School, Academy Hall Floor 2 8853, 415 Broadway, Redwood City, CA 94063

Robert Zellem

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, 91109

Abstract

(Abstract only) The ability for citizen scientists to analyze image data and search for exoplanets using images from small telescopes has the potential to greatly accelerate the search for exoplanets. Recent work on the Exoplanet Transit Interpretation Code (EXOTIC) enables the generation of high-quality light curves of exoplanet transits given such image data. However, on large image datasets, the photometric analysis of the data and fitting light curves can be a time-consuming process. In this work, we first optimize portions of the EXOTIC codebase to enable faster image processing and curve fitting. Specifically, we limited repetitive computation on fitting centroids with various apertures and annuli. Moreover, this speedup is scaled linearly based on the number of FITS files. After testing on existing HAT-P-32 b data and newer HAT-P-23 b data, our best demonstration was approximately a 5x speedup, though that factor increases given a larger number of FITS files. Utilizing the accelerated code, we analyzed transits of HAT-P-23 b, Qatar-1 b, WASP-2 b, and WASP-33 b using data captured by the 16” SRO telescope operated by Boyce-Astro.