Aims. The Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets (ASTEP) program was originally aimed at probing the quality of the Dome C, Antarctica for the discovery and characterization of exoplanets by ...photometry. In the first year of operation of the 40 cm ASTEP 400 telescope (austral winter 2010), we targeted the known transiting planet WASP-19b in order to try to detect its secondary transits in the visible. This is made possible by the excellent sub-millimagnitude precision of the binned data. Methods. The WASP-19 system was observed during 24 nights in May 2010. Once brought back from Antarctica, the data were processed using various methods, and the best results were with an implementation of the optimal image subtraction (OIS) algorithm. Results. The photometric variability level due to starspots is about 1.8% (peak-to-peak), in line with the SuperWASP data from 2007 (1.4%) and higher than in 2008 (0.07%). We find a rotation period of WASP-19 of 10.7 ± 0.5 days, in agreement with the SuperWASP determination of 10.5 ± 0.2 days. Theoretical models show that this can only be explained if tidal dissipation in the star is weak, i.e. the tidal dissipation factor Q'★ > 3×107. Separately, we find evidence of a secondary eclipse of depth 390 ± 190 ppm with a 2.0σ significance, a phase that is consistent with a circular orbit and a 3% false positive probability. Given the wavelength range of the observations (420 to 950 nm), the secondary transit depth translates into a day-side brightness temperature of 2690-220+150 K, in line with measurements in the z′ and K bands. The day-side emission observed in the visible could be due either to thermal emission of an extremely hot day side with very little redistribution of heat to the night side or to direct reflection of stellar light with a maximum geometrical albedo Ag = 0.27 ± 0.13. We also report a low-frequency oscillation in phase at the planet orbital period, but with a lower limit amplitude that could not be attributed to the planet phase alone and that was possibly contaminated with residual lightcurve trends. Conclusions. This first evidence of a secondary eclipse in the visible from the ground demonstrates the high potential of Dome C, Antarctica, for continuous photometric observations of stars with exoplanets. These continuous observations are required to understand star-planet interactions and the dynamical properties of exoplanetary atmospheres.
We present a study of the light curve of the transiting exoplanet CoRoT-2b, aimed at detecting the secondary eclipse and measuring its depth. The data were obtained with the CoRoT satellite during ...its first run of more than 140 days. After filtering the low frequencies with a pre-whitening technique, we detect a $0.0060\pm0.0020$% secondary eclipse centered on the orbital phase $0.494\pm 0.006$. Assuming a black-body emission of the planet, we estimate a surface brightness temperature of $T_{\rm p,CoRoT} =1910^{+90}_{-100}$ K. We provide the planet's equilibrium temperature and re-distribution factors as a function of the unknown amount of reflected light. The upper limit for the geometric albedo is 0.12. The detected secondary is the shallowest ever found.
The detrending algorithms which are widely used to reduce the impact of stellar variability on space-based transit surveys are ill-suited for estimating the parameters of confirmed planets, as they ...unavoidably alter the transit signal. We present a post-detection detrending algorithm, which filters out signal on other time-scales than the period of the transit while preserving the transit signal. We compare the performance of this new filter to a well-established pre-detection detrending algorithm, by applying both to a set of 20 simulated light curves containing planetary transits, stellar variability and instrumental noise as expected for the CoRoT space mission, and performing analytic fits to the transits. Compared to the pre-detection benchmark, the new post-detection filter systematically yields significantly reduced errors (median reduction in relative error over our sample ∼40 per cent) on the planet-to-star-radius ratio, system scale and impact parameter. This is particularly important for active stars, where errors induced by variability can otherwise dominate the final error budget on the planet parameters. Aside from improving planet parameter estimates, the new filter preserves all signal at the orbital period of the planet, and thus could also be used to search for light reflected by the planet.
The motivation, techniques and performance of the ground-based photometric follow-up of transit detections by the CoRoT space mission are presented. Its principal raison d'être arises from the much ...higher spatial resolution of common ground-based telescopes in comparison to CoRoT's cameras. This allows the identification of many transit candidates as arising from eclipsing binaries that are contaminating CoRoT's lightcurves, even in low-amplitude transit events that cannot be detected with ground-based obervations. For the ground observations, “on” – “off” photometry is now largely employed, in which only a short timeseries during a transit and a section outside a transit is observed and compared photometrically. CoRoTplanet candidates' transits are being observed by a dedicated team with access to telescopes with sizes ranging from 0.2 to 2 m. As an example, the process that led to the rejection of contaminating eclipsing binaries near the host star of the Super-Earth planet CoRoT-7b is shown. Experiences and techniques from this work may also be useful for other transit-detection experiments, when the discovery instrument obtains data with a relatively low angular resolution.
The CoRoT satellite exoplanetary team announces its sixth transiting planet in this paper. We describe and discuss the satellite observations as well as the complementary ground-based observations - ...photometric and spectroscopic - carried out to assess the planetary nature of the object and determine its specific physical parameters. The discovery reported here is a `hot Jupiter' planet in an 8.9d orbit, 18 stellar radii, or 0.08 AU, away from its primary star, which is a solar-type star (F9V) with an estimated age of 3.0 Gyr. The planet mass is close to 3 times that of Jupiter. The star has a metallicity of 0.2 dex lower than the Sun, and a relatively high $^7$Li abundance. While thelightcurveindicatesamuchhigherlevelof activity than, e.g., the Sun, there is no sign of activity spectroscopically in e.g., the Ca H&K lines.
Context. The space mission CoRoT is devoted to the analysis of stellar variability and the photometric detection of extrasolar planets. Aims. We present the list of planetary transit candidates ...detected in the first short run observed by CoRoT that targeted SRc01, towards the Galactic center in the direction of Aquila, which lasted from April to May 2007. Methods. Among the acquired data, we analyzed those for 1269 sources in the chromatic bands and 5705 in the monochromatic band. Instrumental noise and the stellar variability were treated with several detrending tools, to which several transit-search algorithms were subsequently applied. Results. Fifty-one sources were classified as planetary transit candidates and 26 were followed up with ground-based observations. Until now, no planet has been detected in the CoRoT data from the SRc01 field.
Aims. We present here the list of planetary transit candidates detected in the first long run observed by CoRoT: LRc01, towards the galactic center in the direction of Aquila, which lasted from May ...to October 2007. Methods. we analyzed 3719 (33%) sources in the chromatic bands and 7689 in the monochromatic band. Instrumental noise and the stellar variability were treated with several detrending tools, on which subsequently several transit search algorithms were applied. Results. Forty two sources were classified as planetary transit candidates and up to now 26 cases have been solved. One planet (CoRoT-2b) and one brown-dwarf (CoRoT-3b) have been the subjects of detailed publications.
Aims. Precise determination of the stellar effective temperature of solar type stars is extremely important for astrophysics. We present an effective temperature calibration for FGK dwarf stars using ...the line equivalent width ratios of spectral absorption lines. Methods. We used the automatic code ARES to measure the equivalent width for several spectral lines. These measurements were used for calibration with the precise effective temperature derived from spectroscopy presented in a previous work. Results. We present the effective temperature calibration for 433 line equivalent width ratios built from 171 spectral lines of different chemical elements. We also make a free code available that uses this calibration and that can be an extension to ARES for fast and automatic estimation of spectroscopic effective temperature of solar type stars.
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