The

Probabilistic Validation Revolution

How Kepler forced a paradigm shift

in how we treat transiting planet candidates

Timothy Morton

(University of Florida/Flatiron Institute)

@timothydmorton

TrES-1 b

Alonso+ (2004)

  • H- and K-band AO imaging
  • Medium-resolution spectroscopy (7 epochs)
  • Multi-color transit photometry (3 facilities, 7 filters)
  • Keck/HIRES RV spectroscopy (8 epochs)

Collier-Cameron, 2012

Kepler-22b (Borucki+, 2011)

- Imaging from 3

  different facilities

- Keck/HIRES spectra (17 epochs)

- 17 hrs Warm Spitzer observation

BLENDER

Morton (2012), Morton+ (2016)

"I really appreciate that you put your FPP calculation software online. We tried writing our own, but it got increasingly difficult to add new features and to make the math more rigorous. It always seemed a bit silly when there are more sophisticated tools like your own out there."

p^H(pl|D) = \displaystyle \frac{\pi^H_{pl} \mathcal Z_{pl}(D)}{\displaystyle \sum_i \pi^H_{i} \mathcal Z_i(D)}
\mathcal Z_{i} = \displaystyle \int \mathcal L_i (\theta | D) \pi(\theta) d\theta

Morton & Johnson (2011)

\theta = \{\delta\}

Morton (2012)

\theta = \{\delta, T, T/\tau \}

pre-Kepler

Kepler/K2

TESS/PLATO/Gaia

Known goals; new data regime

Known data... What goals?

New innovation?

-> required new paradigm!

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