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OATS-UNI/TS SEMINAR
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Speaker: Michele Cappetta (MPE, Garching, Germany)

Title: The first planet detected in the WTS: an inflated hot-Jupiter in a 3.35 day orbit around a late F-star
Date: Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
Time: 11:30
Venue: Villa Bazzoni
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Abstract: The existence of highly-irradiated, gas-giants planets orbiting in few days around their host stars, known as hot-Jupiters (HJs), and the unexpected large radii of many of them, is an unresolved problem in the theory of planet formation and evolution. We report the discovery of WTS-1b, the first extrasolar planet detected by the WFCAM Transit Survey (WTS). The WTS is the only large-scale ground-based transit survey that operates at near infrared wavelengths. High-resolution spectroscopic follow-up conduced at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope allowed to estimate the mass of the stellar companion with the radial velocity method, confirming its planetary nature. WTS-1b is a 4.0+-0.35 Mj HJ planet orbiting in 3.35 days a late-F main sequence dwarf (V=16.13) with possibly slightly subsolar metallicity. With a radius of 1.49+-0.17 Rj, the planet shows one of the largest radius anomaly among the known HJs in the mass range 3-5 Mj.
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Contact: Valentina D'Odorico (OATS)