Susana C. C. Barros
Laboratoire d'astrophysique de Marseille

Abstract
Transiting planet systems are valuable because their geometry enables us to estimate accurate planetary properties. Photometry during transit allow us to derive the orbital inclination and the stellar and planetary radii. This combined with radial velocity observations allows us to derive the absolute mass of the planet. Knowing the planet density gives us insight into its composition (Guillot 2005; Fortney, Marley & Barnes 2007), thus placing constraints on planetary structure and formation models. Hence, there are several exoplanet transit surveys to search for new planets. I will give a brief overview of the superWASP, CoRoT and Kepler surveys and I will discuss the challenges of candidate detection and validation. I will also describe how the system parameters are derived.

Transit timing variations can be used to detected and characterise other planets in the system. I will explain this technique and show preliminary results on the WASP-10 system that was reported to show transit timing variations (TTVs) with amplitude of ~ 3.5 minutes possibly caused by 0.1 M_Jup planet companion in the outer 5:3 mean motion resonant orbit (Maciejewski et al., 2011). However, our preliminary results suggest that the transit times of WASP-10b are consistent with a linear ephemeris.

11 April 2012, 13:30

Centro de Astrofísica
Rua das Estrelas
4150-762 Porto