Searching for Exoplanets Around Faint Stars in TESS FFIs

TESS has observed ~20 million stars brighter than TESS magnitude = 13.5 in Full-Frame Images (FFIs), enabling a rich variety of exoplanet and stellar astrophysics investigations. The number of detectable exoplanets is expected to significantly increase towards fainter stars, given the factor of ~2 increase in the number of stars for each increase in TESS magnitude. However, there has not yet been a systematic search of all stars in FFIs down to these magnitudes, with current efforts focused on either brighter stars (TESS magnitude < 10.5) or specific stellar types. Here we present the results of a search of faint stars observed in the Primary Mission using lightcurves extracted by the Quick Look Pipeline (QLP). Our analysis has resulted in ~1600 new TOIs so far, including TOI-4010, a three-planet system of closely-packed giant planets uncovered with only two sectors of TESS data.