Exploiting the Next Generation Transit Survey

下一代凌日调查(NGTS)是一项新的搜索凌日主星的太阳系外行星的计划。它的主要目标是发现海王星大小的行星，以及恒星周围最大的岩石行星(超级地球)，这些行星也足够明亮，能够进行后续研究，以确定它们的质量和密度，并调查行星的大气组成，例如利用即将推出的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜(JWST)。NGTS已经积累了数百TB的数据和数百万张图像，这些数据和图像必须通过复杂的算法和定制的软件进行自动搜索。令人兴奋的是，NGTS的第一批行星现在已经被发现，并将很快发表。在莱斯特，我们正在领导NGTS系外行星候选的光度跟踪。在仔细地从自动算法突出的数千条光曲线中选择候选之后，我们使用南非天文台的望远镜来确认真正的凌日，识别背景双星等模拟天体，并完善轨道周期。莱斯特的NGTS团队希望吸引一名热情的博士生参与导致这些令人兴奋的系外行星发现的工作。特别是，在2018年，NASA将启动TESS任务，发现围绕数百颗附近明亮恒星的凌日系外行星。我们可以使用NGTS数据来确认TESS的发现，移除背景双星，提供额外的长期数据来完善轨道周期和星历，并寻找长周期行星(NGTS监测恒星的时间比TESS长得多)。此外，NGTS正在收集对一系列不同类型的变星和其他天体的长期、高节奏的观测。我们特别鼓励博士生利用其中一些非系外行星的数据，例如，通过搜索稀有类型的双星，并研究这些天体可以涉及的关键科学。

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a new search for extra-solar planets transiting their host stars. Its primary goal is to find Neptune-sized planets, and perhaps the largest rocky planets ("Super-Earths") around stars that are also bright enough to enable follow-up studies to determine their masses and densities, and to investigate the planets' atmospheric compositions, for example with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Already, NGTS has accumulated several hundred Terabytes of data, and millions of images, that have to be searched automatically by sophisticated algorithms and bespoke software. Excitingly, NGTS's first planets have now been discovered and will be published shortly. At Leicester, we are leading the photometric follow-up of NGTS exoplanet candidates. After carefully selecting candidates from among thousands of light curves highlighted by the automatic algorithms, we use telescopes at the South African Astronomical Observatory to confirm bona fide transits, identify mimics such as background binary stars, and to refine the orbital periods. The NGTS team at Leicester would like to attract an enthusiastic PhD student to participate in the work leading to these exciting exoplanet discoveries. In particular, during 2018 NASA will launch its TESS mission which will find transiting exoplanets around hundreds of nearby and bright stars. We can use NGTS data to confirm TESS discoveries and remove background binaries, provide additional long term data to refine orbital periods and ephemerises, and hunt for long period planets (NGTS monitors stars for much longer than TESS). In addition, NGTS is gathering long term, high cadence, observations of a host of different types of variable stars and other celestial objects. We would particularly encourage a PhD student to exploit some of these non-exoplanet data, for example by searching for rare types of binary star and investigating the key science that those objects can address.