Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission II. CoRoT-Exo-2b: A transiting planet around an active G star
Abstract
Context. The CoRoT mission, a pioneer in exoplanet searches from space, has completed its first 150 days of continuous observations of ~12000 stars in the galactic plane. An analysis of the raw data identifies the most promising candidates and triggers the ground-based follow-up. Aims. We report on the discovery of the transiting planet CoRoT-Exo-2b, with a period of 1.743 days, and characterize its main parameters. Methods. We filter the CoRoT raw light curve of cosmic impacts, orbital residuals, and low frequency signals from the star. The folded light curve of 78 transits is fitted to a model to obtain the main parameters. Radial velocity data obtained with the SOPHIE, CORALIE and HARPS spectro-graphs are combined to characterize the system. The 2.5 min binned phase-folded light curve is affected by the effect of sucessive occultations of stellar active regions by the planet, and the dispersion in the out of transit part reaches a level of 1.09x10-4 in flux units. Results. We derive a radius for the planet of 1.465+-0.029 R_Jup and a mass of 3.31+-0.16 M_Jup, corresponding to a density of 1.31+-0.04 g/cm^3. The large radius of CoRoT-Exo-2b cannot be explained by current models of evolution of irradiated planets.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0803.3207,
title = {Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission II. CoRoT-Exo-2b: A transiting planet around an active G star},
author = {R. Alonso and M. Auvergne and A. Baglin and M. Ollivier and C. Moutou and D. Rouan and H. J. Deeg and S. Aigrain and J. M. Almenara and M. Barbieri and P. Barge and W. Benz and P. Bordé and F. Bouchy and R. De la Reza and M. Deleuil and R. Dvorak and A. Erikson and M. Fridlund and M. Gillon and P. Gondoin and T. Guillot and A. Hatzes and G. Hébrard and P. Kabath and L. Jorda and H. Lammer and A. Léger and A. Llebaria and B. Loeillet and P. Magain and M. Mayor and T. Mazeh and M. Pätzold and F. Pepe and F. Pont and D. Queloz and H. Rauer and A. Shporer and J. Schneider and B. Stecklum and S. Udry and G. Wuchterl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0803.3207},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
A&A Letters (in press), 7 pages, 3 figures