Potential of Photometric Searches for Transiting Planets

Abstract

Many ground-based photometric surveys are now under way, and five of them have been successful at detecting transiting exoplanets. Nevertheless, detecting transiting planets has turned out to be much more challenging than initially anticipated. Transit surveys have learnt that an overwhelming number of false positives and confusion scenarios, combined with an intermittent phase coverage and systematic residuals in the photometry, could make ground-based surveys rather inefficient in the detection of transiting planets. We have set up a working group on transiting planets to confront the experience of the different surveys and get a more complete understanding of these issues, in order to improve the observing strategies and analysis schemes for ongoing surveys, and to prepare for the coming Corot and Kepler space missions. This contribution presents the current results of our working group.