Overcoming the stellar noise barrier for the detection of telluric exoplanets: an approach based on hydrodynamical simulations

Laboratoire Lagrange, UMR, CNRS 7293, Université Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, CS 34229, 06304 Nice, France

Abstract

In 2015, we have celebrated the 20^th birthday of the first extrasolar planet discovered around a solar-like star. Since then, several thousands of planets have been found. In this contribution, we are interested in the detection of telluric planets using radial velocity data. The first part of this paper provides a detailed overview of the exoplanet detection problem with (i) a discussion about the noise sources to be considered, and particularly the “stellar noise”, and (ii) a description of the RV signatures in the temporal and Fourier domains. The second part of this paper presents a new approach that injects in the detection process some prior knowledge (obtained through stellar hydrodynamic simulations) about the stellar noise. A detailed statistical analysis of the detection procedure is proposed with numerical evaluations on simulated and real data.