The Sys-Rem Detrending Algorithm: Implementation and Testing

Abstract

Sys-Rem (Tamuz, Mazeh & Zucker 2005) is a detrending algorithm designed to remove systematic effects in a large set of lightcurves obtained by a photometric survey. The algorithm works without any prior knowledge of the effects, as long as they appear in many stars of the sample. This paper presents the basic principles of Sys-Rem and discusses a parameterization used to determine the number of effects removed. We assess the performance of Sys-Rem on simulated transits injected into WHAT survey data. This test is proposed as a general scheme to assess the effectiveness of detrending algorithms. Application of Sys-Rem to the OGLE dataset demonstrates the power of the algorithm. We offer a coded implementation of Sys-Rem to the community.