New transit observations of WASP-12 b

Gracjan Maciejewski, Dinko Dimitrov, Diana Kjurkchieva, Łukasz Bukowiecki and Damian Puchalski

The transiting extrasolar planet WASP-12 b was announced to exhibit a sign of variations in transit timing. The postulated signal has a period of 550 days and a semi-amplitude of 2 min. Joint analysis of the radial velocities and transit timing resulted in a two-planet model which fits observations much better than a single-planet model. This finding allows us to advance the hypothesis that WASP-12 b is accompanied by additional, less massive planet on a tight orbit. Statistical studies of hot Jupiter candidates in the Kepler sample show that these planets are rare in multi-transiting planetary systems. Solitariness of hot Jupiters is postulated to be a result of the dynamical evolution of their planetary systems. The WASP-12 system would be an interesting outlier which would be challenging for theories of evolution of planetary systems. We present new observations gathered in the observing season 2012/2013 that confirm the transit timing signal and refine its characteristics.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 1, 170-172 (2014)

Download full article as PDF file: