Non-detection of Contamination by Stellar Activity in the Spitzer Transit Light Curves of TRAPPIST-1

Morris, Brett M.; Agol, Eric; Hebb, Leslie; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Gillon, Michaël; Ducrot, Elsa; Delrez, Laetitia; Ingalls, James; Demory, Brice-Olivier (2018). Non-detection of Contamination by Stellar Activity in the Spitzer Transit Light Curves of TRAPPIST-1. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 863(2), L32. Institute of Physics Publishing IOP 10.3847/2041-8213/aad8aa

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We apply the transit light curve self-contamination technique of Morris et al. to search for the effect of stellar activity on the transits of the ultracool dwarf TRAPPIST-1 with 2018 Spitzer photometry. The self-contamination method fits the transit light curves of planets orbiting spotted stars, allowing the host star to be a source of contaminating positive or negative flux that influences the transit depths but not the ingress/egress durations. We find that none of the planets show statistically significant evidence for self-contamination by bright or dark regions of the stellar photosphere. However, we show that small-scale magnetic activity, analogous in size to the smallest sunspots, could still be lurking undetected in the transit photometry.

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