Bibcode
Doyle, Laurance; Blue, E. J.; Deeg, H.-J.; Navarrete, M.; Rottler, L.
Bibliographical reference
Bioastronomy 99: A New Era in the Search for Life
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2000
Citations
1
Refereed citations
0
Description
Having completed a 1000 hour search for terrestrial planets (down to
2.5-Earth-Radii, i.e., planets 1% the size of Jupiter) in the
circumstellar habitable zone (planet periods from 5 to 60 days) around
the small eclipsing binary CM Draconis, (thus well characterizing
especially the low frequency observational noise), we have begun an
extention of these techniques to a crowded field search. We have also
completed a search for jovian-mass planets around 9 additional small-
mass eclipsing binaries using the O-C timing method. Our present
observational data include V, R, and I-band photometry of Baade's Third
Window (BW3) in the Galactic plane, a field in which 108 eclipsing
binaries have already been identified. If 51-Pegasi-type planets form
around close binary systems, and with the same frequency as they have
been found around quiescent single stars in the solar neighborhood, then
our first data set should contain a couple of such transits. We discuss
some of the advantages of searching eclipsing binary stars for
extrasolar planets, and future work, which we hope will soon include a
statistically significant comparision of the rate of large giant planet
formation in the Galactic plane with the rate in an older stellar
population (i.e. globular clusters; see talk by Rottler et al.)