Transit metric for Q1-Q17 Kepler candidates

This metric uses dimensionality reduction and k-nearest neighbors to determine whether a given signal is sufficiently similar to known transits in the same data set. This metric is being used by the Kepler Robovetter to determine which signals should be part of the Q1-Q17 DR24 catalog of planetary candidates.

The Kepler Mission reports roughly 20000 potential transiting signals with each run of its pipeline, yet only a few thousand appear to be sufficiently transit shaped to be part of the catalog. The other signals tend to be variable stars and instrumental noise. With this metric, we are able to remove more than 90% of the non-transiting signals while retaining more than 99% of the known planet candidates.