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THE EXTENDED KEPLER K2 MISSION PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY TO MONITOR TENS-OF-THOUSANDS OF NEARBY ECLIPTIC M DWARFS WITH PRECISE LONG-CADENCE PHOTOMETRY AND TO DISCOVER A NEW POPULATION OF ROCKY AND POTENTIALLY HABITABLE PLANETS AND LARGER SUB-NEPTUNES THAT ARE AMENABLE TO TRANSIT SPECTROSCOPY. WE PROPOSE TO ANALYZE K2 OBSERVATIONS OF 8418 ADDITIONAL M DWARFS SELECTED FOR OBSERVATION DURING CAMPAIGNS 17-19 TO CONTINUE OUR SUCCESSFUL K2 M DWARF PROGRAM (K2-MDP). WE ANTICIPATE THAT WE WILL DETECT AND VALIDATE ROUGHLY 25 ADDITIONAL PLANETS FROM THIS SET OF STARS. FROM THE FULL K2-MDP WE EXPECT TO DETECT 100-200 SMALL PLANETS ORBITING LATETYPE STARS. MANY OF THESE WORLDS WILL BE SMALLER THAN 2 EARTH RADII AND SOME MIGHT EVEN BE HABITABLE. THE SAMPLE WILL SPAN THE RANGE OF PLANETARY PROPERTIES AND ENCOMPASS SMALL COOL POTENTIALLY HABITABLE PLANETS AS WELL AS HOT EARTH-SIZED PLANETS WARM NEPTUNES AND OCCASIONAL GAS GIANTS. THIS NEW POPULATION OF PLANETS WILL DRASTICALLY INCREASE THE NUMBER OF KNOWN M DWARF PLANETARY SYSTEMS IMPROVE PLANET FREQUENCY STATISTICS INFORM THEORIES OF PLANET FORMATION EVOLUTION INTERIORS AND ATMOSPHERES AND PROVIDE NEW TARGETS FOR FOLLOW-UP WITH CURRENT AND FUTURE OBSERVATORIES. OUR M DWARF TARGETS ARE SELECTED ON THE BASIS OF HIGH PROPER-MOTION PHOTOMETRIC COLORS AND SUPPLEMENTED WITH GAIA DATA WHERE FEASIBLE. OUR APPROACH CAPTURES THE MAJORITY OF M DWARFS WITHIN 100PC OF THE SUN WITH LITTLE CONTAMINATION. OUR TARGETS HAVE MEDIAN BRIGHTNESS OF ROUGHLY KP 15 MOST ARE M3-M4 DWARFS AND>95% ARE IN EPIC. WE PRIORITIZE OUR TARGETS USING EXPECTED TRANSIT S/N DETERMINED BY COMPARING K2'S PRECISION TO PREDICTED TRANSIT DEPTH FOR A NOMINAL TRANSITING SUPER-EARTH. WE ESTIMATE TRANSIT DEPTHS BY CONVERTING MULTIBAND TO SPECTRAL TYPE AND THEN TO RADIUS AND EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE. OUR TEAM EXPLOITS KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM ANALYSIS OF KEPLER LIGHT CURVES TO SEARCH K2 PIXEL DATA FOR PLANET TRANSIT SIGNALS. SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF CANDIDATE PLANET HOSTS PROVIDE STELLAR PARAMETERS. OUR FULL PROGRAM FROM TARGET SELECTION TO PLANET DISCOVERIES TO HOST CHARACTERIZATION AIMS TO PROVIDE THE LARGEST AND MOST RELIABLE SAMPLE OF SMALL TRANSITING M DWARF PLANETS TO DATE. THE K2-MDP TEAM HAS MADE STEADY PROGRESS TOWARD ALL OUR GOALS AND PUBLISHED OVER A DOZEN PAPERS. OUR MOST RELEVANT RESULTS ARE PAPERS CHARACTERIZING CANDIDATE COOL DWARFS (DRESSING ET AL. 2017A MARTINEZ ET AL. 2017) AND THE ASSOCIATED PLANETARY SYSTEMS (DRESSING ET AL. 2017B). IN SUPPORT OF K2-MDP WE HAVE BEEN AWARDED LARGE MULTI-SEMESTER PROGRAMS AT PALOMAR IRTF AND ESO FOR SPECTROSCOPIC FOLLOW-UP; KECK FOR RADIAL VELOCITY MASS MEASUREMENT; AND GEMINI FOR HIGH CONTRAST IMAGING. THE PROPOSED TARGETS COMPRISE A KEY PORTION OF THE K2-MDP PROGRAM WHICH AIMS TO REVEAL HUNDREDS OF SMALL PLANETS AROUND NEARBY M DWARFS. DISCOVERIES OF HABITABLE ZONE EARTHLIKE PLANETS AND PLANETS SUITABLE FOR ATMOSPHERIC CHARACTERIZATION ARE PRIMARY SCIENCE DRIVERS FOR K2 AND PRIMARY GOALS OF NASA. OUR PROGRAM WILL PROVIDE BOTH THE SMALL ROCKY PLANETS AND KEY TRANSIT SPECTROSCOPY TARGETS FOR EARLY JWST GUARANTEED TIME OBSERVATIONS (GTO) LEADING UP TO THE CYCLE 1 PROPOSAL DEADLINE IN WINTER 2019. WE ALSO REPROPOSE ALL CANDIDATES AND VALIDATED PLANETS IDENTIFIED BY OUR TEAM IN PREVIOUS K2 CAMPAIGNS (E.G. PETIGURA ET AL. 2018; YU ET AL. 2018) IN ORDER TO MORE FULLY VALIDATE THE REMAINING CANDIDATES AND TO MEASURE TTVS AND MORE PRECISE SYSTEM PARAMETERS FOR THE VALIDATED PLANETS. WE WILL USE THE BULK OF ANY FUNDING TO SUPPORT A GRADUATE STUDENT AT UC BERKELEY ADVISED BY PI COURTNEY DRESSING AND A SUMMER STUDENT AT NASA GODDARD ADVISED BY CO-I SCHLIEDER. WE WILL USE THE REMAINING FUNDING TO COVER TRAVEL FOR OBSERVING AND CONFERENCES.

$109,079FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA

Regents Of The University Of California, The

Investigators

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