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