Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal 05/2003 Detecting Reflected Light from Close-In Extrasolar Giant Planets with the Kepler Photometer Jon M. Jenkins SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, MS 244-30, Moffett Field, CA 94035
[email protected] and Laurance R. Doyle SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043
[email protected] ABSTRACT NASA’s Kepler Mission promises to detect transiting Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of solar-like stars. In addition, it will be poised to detect the reflected light component from close-in extrasolar giant planets (CEGPs) similar to 51 Peg b. Here we use the DIARAD/SOHO time series along with models for the reflected light signatures of CEGPs to evaluate Kepler’s ability to detect arXiv:astro-ph/0305473v1 24 May 2003 such planets. We examine the detectability as a function of stellar brightness, stellar rotation period, planetary orbital inclination angle, and planetary orbital period, and then estimate the total number of CEGPs that Kepler will detect over its four year mission. The analysis shows that intrinsic stellar variability of solar-like stars is a major obstacle to detecting the reflected light from CEGPs. Monte Carlo trials are used to estimate the detection threshold required to limit the total number of expected false alarms to no more than one for a survey of 100,000 stellar light curves. Kepler will likely detect 100-760 51 Peg b-like planets by reflected light with orbital periods up to 7 days. Subject headings: planetary systems — techniques: photometry — methods: data analysis –2– 1.