The Exoplanet Encyclopaedia — Readme

update: 29 January 2015

• Purpose
  This catalog is a working tool providing all the latest detections and data announced by professional astronomers, useful to facilitate progress in exoplanetology. Given the heterogeneity of observational papers, a uniform catalog (with uniform degree of credibility of planets) is impossible. Therefore, ultimately, researchers willing to make a quantitative, scientific, use of the catalog can make their own judgement on the likelihood of data and detections.

  Publication describing the catalog

• Criteria for inclusion in the catalog
  • Physical criteria
    The basic criterion is the mass limit: 60 Jupiter mass.
    
    The former standard limits were13 Jupiter mass, based on the deuterium burning limit, and 30 Jupitter mass, based on formation scenario. However, the mass-density-radius distribution (Hatzes & Rauer, 2015) shows a clear difference between giant planets and stars at 60 Jupier mass.
    
    An additional difficulty comes from the uncertainty in the mass value. We therefore allow for a 1 sigma uncertainty and chose 60 Mjup + 1 sigma as an upper mass limit.
    
    We thus finally include planets with masses < 60 Jup up to 1 sigma
  • Confidence criteria
    Are included planet detections published or submitted to professional journals or announced by professional astronomers in professional conferences.
  • Categories
     There are 4 categories of planets, Confirmed, Candidate, Retracted and Controversial. A planet is considered as Confirmed if it is claimed unambiguously in an accepted paper or a professional conference.
• Data
  
  • Planet data
    Planet data are the latest data known. They are taken from:
    • Latest published papers or professional preprints and conferences
    • First-hand updated data on professional websites. These presently are:
      • Anglo-Australian Planet Search
      • California & Carnegie Planet Search
      • Geneva Extrasolar Planet Search Programmes
      • Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey
      • University of Texas - Dept. of Astronomy
      • HAT and HATS
      • WASP
      • NASA Exoplanet Archive
      • Kepler
        
        
  • Planet parameters :
                     Mass (MJup/MEarth) : mass of the planet
                     soon coming Msini (MJup/MEarth) : minimum mass of the planet due to inclination effect
                     Radius (RJup/Rearth) : radius of the planet
                     Period (day) : orbital period of the planet
                     a (AU) : semi-major axis of the planet orbit
                     e : eccentrity of the planet orbit from 0, circular orbit, to almost 1, very elongated orbit
                     i (deg) : inclination of planet orbit, angle between the planet orbit and the sky plane
                     Ang. dist.(arcsec) : formal star-planet angular separation given by a/Distance
                     Discovery : year of discovery at the time of acceptance of a paper
                     Update : date of the update of data
                     ω (deg) : periapse longitude : angle between the periapse and the line nodes in the orbit plane
                     Tperi (JD) : time of passage at the periapse for eccentric orbits
                     Tconj(JD) : time of the star-planet upper conjunction
                     T0 (JD) : time of passage at the center of the transit light curve for the primary transit
                     T0-sec (JD) : time of passage at the center of the transit light curve for the secondary transit
                     λ Ang. (deg) :  sky-projected angle between the planetary orbital spin and the stellar rotational spin (Rossiter-McLaughlin anomaly).
                     Impact Param b (%) : minimum, in stellar radius units, of distance of the planet to the stellar center for transiting planets
                     TVR (JD) : time of zero, increasing, radial velocity (i.e. when the planet moves toward the observer) for circular orbits
                     K (m/s) :semi-amplitude of the radial velocity curve
                     Tcalc (K) :planet temperature as calculated by authors, based on a planet model
                     Tmeas (K) : planet temperature as measured by authors
                     Hot pt (deg) : longitude of the planet hottest point
                     Ag : Albedo
                     Log(g) : Surface gravity
                     Disc./Det Method : Methods of discovery/detection of the planet (RV, transit, TTV, lensing, astrometry, imaging. The first method is the discovery one.
                     Mass Meas method : Method of measurement of the planet mass (RV, astrometry, planet model for direct imaging)
                     Radius Meas method : Method of measurement of the planet radius (transit,
                     planet model for direct imaging)
                     Alternate names : alternatives names of the same planet
                     Molecules : Species detected in the planet
  
                     Number of planets in the system :
                    
  
  • Stellar data
    Stellar data (positions, distances, V mag, mass, metallicities etc) are taken from Simbad or from professional papers on exoplanets.
  • • Stellar parameters :
              Star name :
              α2000 (hh :mm :ss) : Right Ascension
              δ2000 (hh :mm :ss) : Declination
              mV : apparent magnitude in the V band
              mI : apparent magnitude in the I band
              mJ : apparent magnitude in the J band
              mH : apparent magnitude in the H band
              mK : apparent magnitude in the K band
              Distance (pc) : distance of the star to the observer
              Metallicity : decimal logarithm of the massive elements (« metals ») to hydrogen ratio in solar units  (i.e. Log [(metals/H)star/(metals/H)Sun] )
              Mass (Msun) : star mas in solar units
              Radius (Rsun) : star radius in solar units
              Sp. Type : stellar spectral type
              Age (Gy) : stellar age
              Teff : effective stellar temperature 
              Detected disc :  (direct imaging or IR excess) disc detected
              Magnetic field (Yes/No) : stellar magnetic field detected
  • Errors
    When a value is known only by its maximum or minimum its prefix is « < » or « > ». e.g. : < 89.9 or > 0.067.
• Planet names
  For single planetary companions to a host star, the name is generally NNN b where NNN is the parent star name. When NNN is not taken from a standard star catalog (e.g. HD, HIP, 2MASS, …), NNN is the name given by the discoverers (e.g. CoRoT, Kepler, …).
  For multi-planet systems, the planet names are NNN x where x = b, c, d, etc refers to the chronological order of discovery of the planet.
  Exceptions are possible, like TrES-1 or planets detected by microlensing.
  For "free floating" planets, the name is the name given by the discoverers.
• Functionalities
  Are provided, with different on-line filters:
  • Histogrammes for planet and stellar characteristics
  • Correlation diagrammes between characteristics

Acknowledgements

"This research has made use of data obtained from or tools provided by the portal exoplanet.eu of The Extrasolar
Planets Encyclopaedia."

The functionalities offered would not have been possible without the technical help of the team.