• DOI:10.1051/0004-6361:200810246
• Corpus ID: 115916135

Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. IV. CoRoT-Exo-4b: a transiting planet in a 9.2 d

@article{Aigrain2008TransitingEF,
  title={Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. IV. CoRoT-Exo-4b: a transiting planet in a 9.2 d},
  author={Suzanne Aigrain and Andrew Collier Cameron and Marc Ollivier and Fr'ed'eric Pont and Laurent Jorda and Jose M. Almenara and Roi Alonso and Pierre Barge and Pascal J. Bord{\'e} and François Bouchy and Hans J. Deeg and Ramiro de la Reza and Magali Deleuil and Rudolf Dvorak and Anders Erikson and Malcolm Fridlund and Ph. Gondoin and Micha{\"e}l Gillon and Tristan Guillot and A. P. Hatzes and Helmut Lammer and Antonino Francesco Lanza and Alain L{\'e}ger and Antoine Llebaria and Pierre Magain and T Mazeh and Claire Moutou and Martin Paetzold and Christophe Pinte and Didier Queloz and Heike Rauer and Daniel Rouan and Jodi Schneider and G. Wuchter and S. Zucker},
  journal={Astronomy and Astrophysics},
  year={2008}
}

• S. Aigrain, A. Cameron, +32 authors S. Zucker
• Published 24 July 2008
• Physics, Geology
• Astronomy and Astrophysics

CoRoT, the first space-based transit search, provides ultra-high precision light curves with continuous time-sampling over periods, of up to 5 months. This allows the detection of transiting planets with relatively long periods, and the simultaneous study of the host star's photometric variability. In this letter, we report on the discovery of the transiting giant planet CoRoT-Exo-4b and use the CoRoT light curve to perform a detailed analysis of the transit and to determine the stellar rotation period. The CoRoT light curve was pre-processed to remove outliers and correct for orbital residuals and artefacts due to hot pixels on the detector. After removing stellar variability around each transit, the transit light curve was analysed to determine the transit parameters. A discrete auto-correlation function method was used to derive the rotation period of the star from the out-of-transit light curve. We derive periods for the planet's orbit and star's rotation of 9.20205 +/- 0.00037 and 8.87 +/- 1.12 days respectively, consistent with a synchronised system. We also derive the inclination, i = 90.00 -0.085 +0.000 in degrees, the ratio of the orbital distance to the stellar radius, a/R_s = 17.36 -0.25 +0.05, and the planet to star radius ratio R_p/R_s = 0.1047 -0.0022 +0.0041. We discuss briefly the coincidence between the orbital period of the planet and the stellar rotation period and its possible implications for the system's migration and star-planet interaction history.