Detecting the Wind-Driven Shapes of Extrasolar Giant Planets from Transit Photometry

Details Detecting the Wind-Driven Shapes of Extrasolar Giant Planets from Transit Photometry Detecting the Wind-Driven Shapes of Extrasolar Giant Planets from Transit Photometry

2009-10-19

arxiv.org/abs/0910.3717v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

ApJ, accepted -- scheduled for publication 2009 December 1

Scientific paper

Several processes can cause the shape of an extrasolar giant planet's shadow, as viewed in transit, to depart from circular. In addition to rotational effects, cloud formation, non-homogenous haze production and movement, and dynamical effects (winds) could also be important. When such a planet transits its host star as seen from Earth, the asphericity will introduce a deviation in the transit lightcurve relative to the transit of a perfectly spherical (or perfectly oblate) planet. We develop a theoretical framework to interpret planet shapes. We then generate predictions for transiting planet shapes based on a published theoretical dynamical model of HD189733b. Using these shape models we show that planet shapes are unlikely to introduce detectable lightcurve deviations (those >~1e-5 of the host star), but that the shapes may lead to astrophysical sources of systematic error when measuring planetary oblateness, transit time, and impact parameter.

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