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
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.