Are habitable-zone TESS Objects of Interest really there? Period resolution from the full archive

TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) seen as single or duo transits carry a catalogue period that is undefined or equal to the separation of the two events, and their insolation and any habitable-zone label inherit it. We reanalyse all 187 TOIs catalogued with P = 0 or P >= 200 d using all public TESS data through Sector 107, with a flux-based method that weights each alias by per-epoch transit likelihoods, the transit duration and a geometric prior, and tests for coherence, data edges, contamination by other planets and instrumental artefacts. It recovers 12 published periods blindly and, in injection-recovery tests, 71 per cent of periods constrained by a new transit, with no wrong period. It resolves 28 periods and fixes 8 more by exclusion. Are habitable-zone TOIs really there? Mostly not: of the 28 duo-transits that a catalogue-period criterion places in the conservative habitable zone, about two are expected to lie there, both giants, and none of the 12 planet-sized ones; those resolved are aliases of hotter planets. Conversely, habitable-zone planets hide behind missing or wrong periods: we recover three published M-dwarf examples and validate four planets with new periods, including TOI-2298 b, a 3.0 Earth-radius sub-Neptune at 146.58 d in the conservative habitable zone of a K dwarf, and TOI-6075 b, a 1.7 Earth-radius planet at 416.5 d (833 d not excluded), the second validated transiting planet smaller than 2 Earth radii with P > 1 yr. We release alias-marginalised habitable-zone probabilities for the whole sample.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
arXiv (Cornell University)
Published
2026-11-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2611.03019
Primary Topic
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
Type
preprint
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preprint

Are habitable-zone TESS Objects of Interest really there? Period resolution from the full archive

Juan F. Pagés Navarrete
arXiv (Cornell University)
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
preprint

Are habitable-zone TESS Objects of Interest really there? Period resolution from the full archive

Juan F. Pagés Navarrete
preprint en

Abstract

TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) seen as single or duo transits carry a catalogue period that is undefined or equal to the separation of the two events, and their insolation and any habitable-zone label inherit it. We reanalyse all 187 TOIs catalogued with P = 0 or P >= 200 d using all public TESS data through Sector 107, with a flux-based method that weights each alias by per-epoch transit likelihoods, the transit duration and a geometric prior, and tests for coherence, data edges, contamination by other planets and instrumental artefacts. It recovers 12 published periods blindly and, in injection-recovery tests, 71 per cent of periods constrained by a new transit, with no wrong period. It resolves 28 periods and fixes 8 more by exclusion. Are habitable-zone TOIs really there? Mostly not: of the 28 duo-transits that a catalogue-period criterion places in the conservative habitable zone, about two are expected to lie there, both giants, and none of the 12 planet-sized ones; those resolved are aliases of hotter planets. Conversely, habitable-zone planets hide behind missing or wrong periods: we recover three published M-dwarf examples and validate four planets with new periods, including TOI-2298 b, a 3.0 Earth-radius sub-Neptune at 146.58 d in the conservative habitable zone of a K dwarf, and TOI-6075 b, a 1.7 Earth-radius planet at 416.5 d (833 d not excluded), the second validated transiting planet smaller than 2 Earth radii with P > 1 yr. We release alias-marginalised habitable-zone probabilities for the whole sample.

arXiv (Cornell University)
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
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