WASP-3b: a strongly-irradiated transiting gas-giant planet
Abstract
We report the discovery of WASP-3b, the third transiting exoplanet to be discovered by the WASP and SOPHIE collaboration. WASP-3b transits its host star USNO-B1.0 1256-0285133 every 1.846834+-0.000002 days. Our high precision radial-velocity measurements present a variation with amplitude characteristic of a planetary-mass companion and in-phase with the light-curve. Adaptive optics imaging shows no evidence for nearby stellar companions, and line-bisector analysis excludes faint, unresolved binarity and stellar activity as the cause of the radial-velocity variations. We make a preliminary spectroscopic analysis of the host star finding it to have Teff = 6400+-100 K and log g = 4.25+-0.05 which suggests it is most likely an unevolved main sequence star of spectral type F7-8V. Our simultaneous modelling of the transit photometry and reflex motion of the host leads us to derive a mass of 1.76 +0.08 -0.14 M_J and radius 1.31 +0.07-0.14 R_J for WASP-3b. The proximity and relative temperature of the host star suggests that WASP-3b is one of the hottest exoplanets known, and thus has the potential to place stringent constraints on exoplanet atmospheric models.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0711.0126,
title = {WASP-3b: a strongly-irradiated transiting gas-giant planet},
author = {D. Pollacco and I. Skillen and A. Collier Cameron and B. Loeillet and H. C. Stempels and F. Bouchy and N. P. Gibson and L. Hebb and G. Hebrard and Y. C. Joshi and I. McDonald and B. Smalley and A. M. S. Smith and R. A. Street and S. Udry and R. G. West and D. M. Wilson and P. J. Wheatley and S. Aigrain and C. R. Benn and V. A. Bruce and D. J. Christian and W. I. Clarkson and B. Enoch and A. Evans and A. Fitzsimmons and C. A. Haswell and C. Hellier and S. Hickey and S. T. Hodgkin and K. Horne and M. Hrudkova and J. Irwin and S. R. Kane and F. P. Keenan and T. A. Lister and P. Maxted and M. Mayor and C. Moutou and A. J. Norton and J. P. Osborne and N. Parley and F. Pont and D. Queloz and R. Ryans and E. Simpson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.0126},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, submitted for publication in MNRAS