The K2 & TESS Synergy II: Revisiting 26 systems in the TESS Primary Mission

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2301.01306
• Publication Date: 2023-03-10
• Authors: Erica Thygesen; Jessica A. Ranshaw; Joseph E. Rodriguez; Andrew Vanderburg; Samuel N. Quinn; Jason D. Eastman; Allyson Bieryla; David W. Latham; Roland K. Vanderspek; Jon M. Jenkins; Douglas A. Caldwell; Mma Ikwut-Ukwa; Knicole D. Colón; Jessie Dotson; Christina Hedges; Karen A. Collins; Michael L. Calkins; Perry Berlind; Gilbert A. Esquerdo
• Keywords: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Exoplanet astronomy; Exoplanets; Astronomy; FOS: Physical sciences; QB1-991; Ephemerides; 01 natural sciences; 13. Climate action; 0103 physical sciences; Exoplanet catalogs; Exoplanet systems; Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Abstract The legacy of NASA’s K2 mission has provided hundreds of transiting exoplanets that can be revisited by new and future facilities for further characterization, with a particular focus on studying the atmospheres of these systems. However, the majority of K2-discovered exoplanets have typical uncertainties on future times of transit within the next decade of greater than 4 hr, making observations less practical for many upcoming facilities. Fortunately, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission is reobserving most of the sky, providing the opportunity to update the ephemerides for ∼300 K2 systems. In the second paper of this series, we reanalyze 26 single-planet, K2-discovered systems that were observed in the TESS primary mission by globally fitting their K2 and TESS light curves (including extended mission data where available), along with any archival radial velocity measurements. As a result of the faintness of the K2 sample, 13 systems studied here do not have transits detectable by TESS. In those cases, we refit the K2 light curve and provide updated system parameters. For the 23 systems with M * ≳ 0.6 M ⊙, we determine the host star parameters using a combination of Gaia parallaxes, spectral energy distribution fits, and MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks stellar evolution models. Given the expectation of future TESS extended missions, efforts like the K2 and TESS Synergy project will ensure the accessibility of transiting planets for future characterization while leading to a self-consistent catalog of stellar and planetary parameters for future population efforts.