Assessing the Impact of High-Resolution Imaging on Statistical Validation of TESS Planet Candidates

[2608.21560] Assessing the Impact of High-Resolution Imaging on Statistical Validation of TESS Planet Candidates Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arXiv:2608.21560 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 21 Aug 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 24 Sep 2026 (this version, v3)] Title: Assessing the Impact of High-Resolution Imaging on Statistical Validation of TESS Planet Candidates Authors: Michael Collier , Steven Giacalone , Brian Derfer , David R. Ciardi , Catherine A. Clark , Ian J. M. Crossfield , Sarah Deveny , Sergio B. Fajardo-Acosta , Elise Furlan , Emily A. Gilbert , Steve B. Howell , Adam L. Kraus , Rachel A. Matson , Joshua E. Schlieder , Julian C. van Eyken , David Baker , Khalid Barkaoui , Özgür Baştürk , Mario Basilicata , Izuru Fukuda , Akihiko Fukui , Mourad Ghachoui , Michaël Gillon , Emmanuel Jehin , Jerome de Leon , Luigi Mancini , Francesca Manni , Gabriel Murawski , Bob Massey , Luca Naponiello , Norio Narita , Justus Randolph , Roberto Zambelli , Richard P. Schwarz , Abderahmane Soubkiou , Gregor Srdoc , Chris Stockdale , Toshi Suganuma , Jiaqi Wang , Francis P. Wilkin , Selçuk Yalçınkaya View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: High-resolution imaging is widely used to constrain false-positive scenarios in exoplanet validation, but it is a finite follow-up resource that reaches only a subset of candidates, and its population-level impact on validation outcomes has not been quantified through controlled removal experiments. Using an automated pipeline built on TRICERATOPS, we compute the false-positive probability (FPP) of 443 TESS planet candidates. For the 264 planet candidates with high-resolution imaging observations, we compute FPP with and without the corresponding contrast curves, allowing us to quantify the impact of the additional data. We find that 72% of 68 contrast-curve bearing validated planets would fail validation without their adopted contrast curves. The fraction requiring imaging decreases with increasing planet size, from 100% below $1.7~R_\oplus$ to $33\%$ above $4~R_\oplus$: within our sample and TRICERATOPS-based analysis, the availability of high-resolution imaging directly limits the yield of small-planet validation and the supply of validated targets for atmospheric characterization. Our analysis statistically validates 64 new TESS planets with sizes spanning 0.94 to 7.83 $R_\oplus$ across hosts of spectral type M through F. Four of these are highly amenable to JWST observations based on the transmission and emission spectroscopy metrics, and each achieves validation only with its imaging constraint. Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) ; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) Cite as: arXiv:2608.21560 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2608.21560v3 [astro-ph.EP] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.21560 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Steven Giacalone [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:51:06 UTC (570 KB) [v2] Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:04:01 UTC (572 KB) [v3] Thu, 24 Sep 2026 04:43:54 UTC (572 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: astro-ph.EP < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.IM References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. 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