The occurrence rate of planets around subgiant stars from the TESS photometric survey

Abstract

Subgiant stars represent a critical phase in stellar evolution, offering an opportunity to investigate how planetary systems respond to the early stages of post-main-sequence expansion. Despite their importance, systematic occurrence-rate studies of this population remain sparse compared with those of main-sequence and red-giant hosts. In this paper, we present a uniform analysis of planet occurrence around a sample of 282,904 subgiant stars selected from the Data Release 3 (DR3) catalogue. We performed an independent re-analysis of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) light curves for transit-signal detection and refinement, followed by multi-stage vetting including a visual inspection and statistical false-positive assessment. We quantified the detection sensitivity of the survey through injection-and-recovery experiments, with 565,808 synthetic transit signals injected across the stellar sample. Over the period range of 1--10 days and the planet-radius range for which the detection completeness is well characterised, we measure a completeness-corrected planet occurrence rate of 0.644^ Gaia +0.048 _ -0.041 %. The occurrence rate is strongly dependent on planet radius, with the highest occurrence contributed by planets in the 1--4,R_⊕ range and a secondary enhancement at 12--15,R_⊕. These results provide a demographic baseline for studying the population of close-in planets around stars undergoing early post-main-sequence evolution.