Variable stars and cand. planets from K2

The forward-facing direction of the C17 field means follow-up can begin immediately now that the campaign has concluded and interesting targets have been identified. The C17 field has a large overlap with C6, so this latest campaign also offers an infrequent opportunity to study a large number of targets already observed in a previous K2 campaign.

The timing of the C17 data release, shortly before science operations begin with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), also lets us exercise some of the tools and methods developed for identification and dissemination of planet candidates from TESS. We find excellent agreement between these results and those identified using only K2-based tools. Among our planet candidates are several planet candidates with sizes <4R_{Earth}_ and orbiting stars with Kp<~10 (indicating good RV targets of the sort TESS hopes to find) and a Jupiter-sized single-transit event around a star already hosting a 6 day planet candidate.