Transit detection limits for sub-stellar and terrestrial companions to white dwarfs

The SuperWASP project is a ground-based ultra wide angle search for extra-solar planetary transits that has successfully detected 15 previously unknown planets in the last two years. We have used SuperWASP photometric data to investigate the transit characteristics of and detection limits for brown dwarfs, gas giants and terrestrial companions in orbit around white dwarfs. The relatively small size of a white dwarf host star (approximately 1 Earth radius), implies that any sub-stellar or gas giant companion will completely eclipse it, while terrestrial bodies smaller than the Moon will produce relatively large (> 1%) transits, detectable in good S/N light-curves. We performed extensive simulations using SuperWASP photometric data and we found that for Gaussian random noise we are sensitive to companions as small as the Moon. Our sensitivity drops in the presence of co-variant noise structure, nevertheless Earth-size bodies remain readily detectable in relatively low S/N data. We searched for eclipses and transit signals in a sample of 174 WASP targets, resulting from a cross-correlation of the McCook & Sion catalogue and the SuperWASP data archive. This study found no evidence for sub-stellar or planetary companions in close orbits around our sample of white dwarfs

WASP-52b, WASP-58b, WASP-59b, and WASP-60b: Four new transiting close-in giant planets

We present the discovery of four new transiting hot Jupiters, detected mainly from SuperWASP-North and SOPHIE observations. These new planets, WASP-52b, WASP-58b, WASP-59b, and WASP-60b, have orbital periods ranging from 1.7 to 7.9 days, masses between 0.46 and 0.94 MJup, and radii between 0.73 and 1.49 RJup. Their G1 to K5 dwarf host stars have V magnitudes in the range 11.7−13.0. The depths of the transits are between 0.6 and 2.7%, depending on the target. With their large radii, WASP-52b and WASP-58b are new cases of low-density, inflated planets, whereas WASP-59b is likely to have a large, dense core. WASP-60 shows shallow transits. In the case of WASP-52 we also detected the Rossiter-McLaughlin anomaly via time-resolved spectroscopy of a transit. We measured the sky-projected obliquity λ = 24° +17-9, indicating that WASP-52b orbits in the same direction as its host star isrotating and that this prograde orbit is slightly misaligned with the stellar equator. These four new planetary systems increase our statistics on hot Jupiters and provide new targets for follow-up studies