A Search for Exozodis with Kepler

Planets embedded within exozodiacal dust disks may form large scale clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. When viewed edge-on, these clumpy dust structures periodically pass in front of their host star, creating orbit-long light curve variations potentially detectable with Kepler. Here I present the first search for these resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the light curves of planet candidate host stars identified by the Kepler mission. Our detection routine produced one promising candidate disk structure associated with a hot Jupiter planet candidate. However, radial velocity measurements show this planet candidate to be an eclipsing binary with an unusual periodic signal. We use our null result to place an upper limit on the frequency of high contrast resonant dust clumps, a useful metric for future missions that aim to image extrasolar planets in the inner …