Stellar parameters of KIC planet-host stars

Therefore, the accuracy with which we know the masses and radii of extrasolar planets depends directly on how well we know those of the stars, the latter usually determined from the measured stellar surface gravity, log g.

Recent work has demonstrated that the short-timescale brightness variations ("flicker") of stars can be used to measure log g to a high accuracy of ~0.1-0.2 dex. Here, we use flicker measurements of 289 bright (Kepmag<13) candidate planet-hosting stars with T_eff_=4500-6650 K to re-assess the stellar parameters and determine the resulting impact on derived planet properties. This re-assessment reveals that for the brightest planet-host stars, Malmquist bias contaminates the stellar sample with evolved stars: nearly 50% of the bright planet-host stars are subgiants.