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The Spitzer search for the transits of HARPS low-mass planets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2011

Michaël Gillon ,
Brice-Olivier Demory ,
Drake Deming ,
Sara Seager  and
Christophe Lovis
Michaël Gillon
Affiliation:
Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Université de Liège, 17 Allée du 6 Août, Bat. B5C, 4000 Liège, Belgium email: michael.gillon@ulg.ac.be
Brice-Olivier Demory
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Drake Deming
Affiliation:
Astronomy Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421, Maryland, USA
Sara Seager
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Christophe Lovis
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 Chemin des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
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Abstract

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Radial velocity, microlensing and transit surveys have revealed the existence of a large population of low-mass planets in our Galaxy, the so-called ‘Super-Earths’ and ‘Neptunes’. The understanding of these objects would greatly benefit from the detection of a few of them transiting bright nearby stars, making possible their thorough characterization with high signal-to-noise follow-up measurements. Our HARPS Doppler survey has now detected dozens of low-mass planets in close orbit around bright nearby stars, and it is highly probable that a few of them do transit their host star. In this context, we have set up an ambitious Spitzer program devoted to the search for the transits of the short period low-mass planets detected by HARPS. We present here this program and some of its first results.

Keywords

planetary systemseclipsestechniques: photometrictechniques: radial velocities
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S276: The Astrophysics of Planetary Systems: Formation, Structure, and Dynamical Evolution , October 2010 , pp. 167 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

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