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A transit timing analysis of nine RISE light curves of the exoplanet system TrES-3

Gibson, NP, Pollacco, D, Simpson, EK, Barros, S, Joshi, YC, Todd, I, Keenan, FP, Skillen, I, Benn, C, Christian, D, Hrudkova, M and Steele, IA (2009) A transit timing analysis of nine RISE light curves of the exoplanet system TrES-3. Astrophysical Journal, 700 (2). ISSN 0004-637X

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Abstract

We present nine newly observed transits of TrES-3, taken as part of a transit timing program using the RISE instrument on the Liverpool Telescope. A Markov-Chain Monte Carlo analysis was used to determine the planet-star radius ratio and inclination of the system, which were found to be Rp /R sstarf = 0.1664+0.0011 –0.0018 and i = 81.73+0.13 –0.04, respectively, consistent with previous results. The central transit times and uncertainties were also calculated, using a residual-permutation algorithm as an independent check on the errors. A re-analysis of eight previously published TrES-3 light curves was conducted to determine the transit times and uncertainties using consistent techniques. Whilst the transit times were not found to be in agreement with a linear ephemeris, giving χ2 = 35.07 for 15 degrees of freedom, we interpret this to be the result of systematics in the light curves rather than a real transit timing variation. This is because the light curves that show the largest deviation from a constant period either have relatively little out-of-transit coverage or have clear systematics. A new ephemeris was calculated using the transit times and was found to be Tc (0) = 2454632.62610 ± 0.00006 HJD and P = 1.3061864 ± 0.0000005 days. The transit times were then used to place upper mass limits as a function of the period ratio of a potential perturbing planet, showing that our data are sufficiently sensitive to have probed sub-Earth mass planets in both interior and exterior 2:1 resonances, assuming that the additional planet is in an initially circular orbit.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 0201 Astronomical And Space Sciences, 0305 Organic Chemistry, 0306 Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural)
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions: Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher: American Astronomical Society; IOP Publishing
Related URLs:
Date Deposited: 19 Jan 2017 09:23
Last Modified: 20 Apr 2022 09:21
DOI or ID number: 10.1088/0004-637X/700/2/1078
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5288
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