Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

The Dispersed Matter Planet Project Sample — Detection limits, Occurrence Rates and New Planets

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

February 23, 2026

Filed under astro-ph.EP, astronomy, DMPP-1, DMPP-2, DMPP-3, exoplanet, HD118006, HD181433, HD191122, HD200133, HD39194, HD67200, HD89839, radial-velocity, Stellar Cartography

The Dispersed Matter Planet Project Sample — Detection limits, Occurrence Rates and New Planets — Completeness and planet abundance plot for the DMPP radial velocity survey of 24 targets with sub-basal activity, as a function of minimum mass and orbital period. The red contours indicate the completeness of the survey from 0% (white) to 100% (dark red) as in Figure 10 in Martin et al. (2019). The dark green circles show previously published planet signals present in our data, while the light green show signals found to pass our detection threshold in this work. Cyan open circles are the three candidate signals we identified with moderate statistical evidence, while the grey circles represent signals which we suspect arise from activity. The white lines delineate 11 boxes enclosing regions of parameter space within which we are able to constrain our planetary abundance. Box limits were chosen to be roughly equal in log space for short periods within our completeness, with mass limits on integer masses. The number in the centre of each box is a percentage indicating the planet abundance with its 1𝜎 uncertainty, or the 2𝜎 (95%) upper limit on abundance where no planet detection was made. The white values in the lower right of each box is its mean completeness as a percentage. — astro-ph.EP

DMPP is a radial-velocity survey that aims to detect planets around stars exhibiting anomalous activity signatures, consistent with the presence of close-in evaporating planets.

Here, we report the discovery of 7 new planetary signals in 5 different systems: DMPP-2c & d, HD67200/DMPP-6b & c, HD118006/DMPP-7b, HD191122/DMPP-8b, and HD200133/DMPP-9b. We update the orbital parameters of the DMPP-1, DMPP-2, and DMPP-3 systems, along with those of the planetary systems orbiting HD181433, HD39194, and HD89839.

We derive detection limits for all 24 targets in our sample with adequate observational coverage, and test the DMPP hypothesis by calculating the occurrence rates for planets in this configuration.

We find that the occurrence rates of planets in our sample with orbital periods shorter than 50 d and masses in the range 3-10 M_⊕ are 83.0+27.1−24.4%, for 10-30 M_⊕ are 27.0+15.0−11.2%, and for 30-100 M_⊕ are 13.9+11.8−7.5%. This is significantly higher than the occurrence rates reported by other radial velocity surveys, providing strong support for the DMPP hypothesis.

Matthew R. Standing, John R. Barnes, Carole A. Haswell, Adam T. Stevenson, João P. Faria, Erwan Quintin, Zachary O. B. Ross, Luca Fossati, James S. Jenkins, Douglas Alves, Daniel Staab

Comments: 16 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Appendix: 20 pages, 47 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2602.18207 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2602.18207v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.18207
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Submission history
From: Matthew Standing
[v1] Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:35:46 UTC (13,682 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.18207
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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