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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

SOAP-T: a tool to study the light curve and radial velocity of a system with a transiting planet and a rotating spotted star

M. Oshagh, I. Boisse, G. Boué, M. Montalto, N. C. Santos, X. Bonfils, N. Haghighipour

Abstract
We present an improved version of SOAP named “SOAP-T”, which can generate the radial velocity variations and light curves for systems consisting of a rotating spotted star with a transiting planet. This tool can be used to study the anomalies inside transit light curves and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, to better constrain the orbital configuration and properties of planetary systems and the active zones of their host stars. Tests of the code are presented to illustrate its performance and to validate its capability when compared with analytical models and real data. Finally, we apply SOAP-T to the active star, HAT-P-11, observed by the NASA Kepler space telescope and use this system to discuss the capability of this tool in analyzing light curves for the cases where the transiting planet overlaps with the star’s spots.

Keywords
planetary systems – methods: numerical – techniques: photometric – techniques: radial velocities – stars: activity

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Volume 549, Page A35_1
January 2013

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