period_average: A function to search the Kepler data for periodically recurring dips in luminosity.

Description

The signal of transiting planets is very weak, especially if the planet is small. This function amplifies it by exploiting the periodicity of the signal. All observations times are taken modulo the period and then binned. An average is then taken within each bin, those averages then stored as a vector and returned. If the orbital period of an exoplanet (or an integer fraction thereof) is used as argument for "period", the signal to noise ratio of the transit is improved, which can allow for the planet's detection.

Usage

period_average(data, period)

Arguments

data

A dataframe with one column named "Day" and the other "Brightness", such as Kepler10965588 (included in the package).

period

A numeric which is larger than 0 representing the period (in days) which is to be examined.

Value

A vector of numerics.

Examples

Run this code

# NOT RUN {
library(anomaly)
data(Lightcurves)
### Plot the data for Kepler 10965588: No transit apparent
plot(Lightcurves$Kepler10965588$Day,Lightcurves$Kepler10965588$Brightness,xlab = "Day",pch=".")
### Examine a period of 62.9 days for Kepler 10965588
binned_data = period_average(Lightcurves$Kepler10965588,62.9)
inferred_anomalies = anomaly_series(binned_data)
plot(inferred_anomalies,xlab="Bin")
# We found a planet! 

# }

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