Status and Prospects of Planetary Transit Searches: Hot Jupiters Galore

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

The first transiting extrasolar planet, orbiting HD 209458, was a Doppler wobble planet before its transits were identified with a 10 ern CCD camera. Wide-angle CCD cameras, by monitoring in parallel the light curves of tens of thousands of stars, should find hot Jupiter transits much faster than the Doppler wobble method. The discovery rate could easily rise by a factor 10. The sky holds perhaps 1000 hot Jupiters transiting stars brighter than V = 13. These are bright enough for follow-up radial velocity studies to measure planet masses to go along with the radii from the transit light curves. I derive scaling laws for the discovery potential of ground-based transit searches, and use these to assess over two dozen planetary transit surveys currently underway. The main challenge ties in calibrating small systematic errors that limit the accuracy of CCD photometry at milli-magnitude levels. Promising transit candidates have been reported by several groups, and many more are sure to follow.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationScientific frontiers in research on extrasolar planets
Subtitle of host publicationproceedings of a conference held in Washington, D.C., USA, 18-21 June 2002
EditorsDrake Deming, Sara Seager
PublisherAstronomical Society of the Pacific
Pages361-370
ISBN (Print)1583811419
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2003

Publication series

NameASP Conference Series
Volume294

Keywords

  • GRAVITATIONAL LENSING EXPERIMENT
  • LUMINOSITY OBJECT TRANSITS
  • EXTRASOLAR PLANET
  • STELLAR CLUSTERS
  • GALACTIC DISK
  • TRANSMISSION SPECTRA
  • 2001 CAMPAIGN
  • PARENT STARS
  • TELESCOPE
  • PHOTOMETRY

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Status and Prospects of Planetary Transit Searches: Hot Jupiters Galore'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this