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arXiv · 2509.08773

Searching for GEMS: The Occurrence of Giant Planets orbiting M-dwarfs within 100 pc

Abstract

We present results from a systematic search for transiting short-period Giant Exoplanets around M-dwarf Stars (GEMS; $P < 10$ days, $R_p \gtrsim 8~R_\oplus$) within a distance-limited 100 pc sample of $149,316$ M-dwarfs using TESS-Gaia Light Curve (TGLC) data. We describe the development and application of the \textit{TESS-miner} package and associated vetting procedures used in this analysis. To assess detection completeness, we conducted $\sim$72 million injection-recovery tests across $\sim$26,000 stars with an average of $\sim$3 sectors of data per star, subdivided into early-type (M0--M2.5), mid-type (M2.5--M4), and late-type (M4 or later) M-dwarfs. Our pipeline demonstrates high sensitivity across all subtypes within the injection bounds. We estimate the occurrence rates of short-period GEMS as a function of stellar mass, and combine our measured rates with those derived for FGK stars, fitting an exponential trend with stellar mass, consistent with core-accretion theory predictions. We find GEMS occurrence rates of $0.118\% \pm 0.068\%$ for early-type M-dwarfs, $0.153\% \pm 0.069\%$ for mid-type, and $0.036\% \pm 0.024\%$ for late-type M-dwarfs, with a mean rate of $0.068\%\pm0.024\%$ across the full sample. While our search spanned $1.0~\mathrm{days} < P < 10.0$ days, these rates were calculated using planets orbiting with $1.0~\mathrm{days} < P < 5.0$ days. This work establishes the basis for future occurrence rate studies of transiting GEMS.

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Rowen I. Glusman, Caleb I. Cañas, Shubham Kanodia, Te Han, Rachel B. Fernandes, Guðmundur Stefánsson, Eric B. Ford, Marissa Maney, Andrew Monson, Andrew Hotnisky, Suvrath Mahadevan, Michael Rodruck, Kristo Ment, Andrew McWilliam, William D. Cochran, Knicole D. Colón, Mark R. Giovinazzi, Jaime A. Alvarado-Montes, Chad F. Bender, Cullun H. Blake, Alexandra Boone, Scott A. Diddams, Arvind F. Gupta, Samuel Halverson, Daniel Krolikowski, Andrew S. J. Lin, Joe P. Ninan, Paul Robertson, Arpita Roy, Christian Schwab, Ryan Terrien, Johanna Teske, Jason T. Wright. 2025-09-10. Searching for GEMS: The Occurrence of Giant Planets orbiting M-dwarfs within 100 pc. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08773

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