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The TAOS Project: Statistical Analysis of Multi-Telescope Time Series Data

Lehner, M. J. and Coehlo, N. K. and Zhang, Z.-W. and Bianco, F. B. and Wang, J.-H. and Rice, J. A. and Protopapas, P. and Alcock, C. and Axelrod, T. and Byun, Y.-I. and Chen, W. P. and Cook, K. H. and de Pater, I. and Kim, D.-W. and King, S.-K. and Lee, T. and Marshall, S. L. and Schwamb, M. E. and Wang, S.-Y. and Wen, C.-Y. (2010) The TAOS Project: Statistical Analysis of Multi-Telescope Time Series Data. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 122 (894). pp. 959-975. ISSN 0004-6280 http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20100825-090747784

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Abstract

The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) monitors fields of up to ~1000 stars at 5 Hz simultaneously with four small telescopes to detect occultation events from small (~1 km) Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). The survey presents a number of challenges, in particular the fact that the occultation events we are searching for are extremely rare and are typically manifested as slight flux drops for only one or two consecutive time series measurements. We have developed a statistical analysis technique to search the multi-telescope data set for simultaneous flux drops which provides a robust false-positive rejection and calculation of event significance. In this article, we describe in detail this statistical technique and its application to the TAOS data set.


Item Type:Article
Additional Information:© 2010 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Received 2010 February 18; accepted 2010 June 2; published 2010 June 30. This work was supported in part by the thematic research program AS-88-TP-A02 at Academia Sinica. N. K. C.’s work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant DMS-0636667.Work at the Harvard College Observatory was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant AST-0501681 and by NASA under grant NNG04G113G. The work at National Central University was supported by the grant NSC 96-2112-M-008-024-MY3. J. A. R.’s work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant AST-00507254. S. L. M.’s work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and by Stanford Linear Accelerator Center under Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. Y. I. B. acknowledges the support of National Research Foundation of Korea through Grant 2009- 0075376. K. H. C.’s work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and in part under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NSFAS-88-TP-A02
NSFDMS-0636667
NSFAST-0501681
NASANNG04G113G
National Central University NSC 96-2112-M-008-024-MY3
NSFAST-00507254
US Department of Energy Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryW-7405-Eng-48
Stanford Linear Accelerator CenterDE-AC02-76SF00515
National Research Foundation of Korea2009-0075376
US Department of Energy DE-AC52-07NA27344
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20100825-090747784
Persistent URL:http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20100825-090747784
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Official Citation:The TAOS Project: Statistical Analysis of Multi-Telescope Time Series Data M. J. Lehner, N. K. Coehlo, Z.-W. Zhang, F. B. Bianco, J.-H. Wang, J. A. Rice, P. Protopapas, C. Alcock, T. Axelrod, Y.-I. Byun, W. P. Chen, K. H. Cook, I. de Pater, D.-W. Kim, S.-K. King, T. Lee, S. L. Marshall, M. E. Schwamb, S.-Y. Wang, and C.-Y. Wen Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2010 122:894, 959-975
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:19655
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Tony Diaz
Deposited On:14 Sep 2010 16:52
Last Modified:26 Dec 2012 12:21

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