A Smaller Radius for the Transiting Exoplanet WASP-10b

TL;DR

This study uses advanced photometry to refine the radius measurement of exoplanet WASP-10b, achieving higher precision and a smaller radius estimate consistent with theoretical models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel PSF-shaping technique with the OPTIC camera to significantly improve the precision of exoplanet radius measurements.

Findings

Planetary radius is 1.080 +/- 0.020 Rjup.

Measurement precision improved by a factor of 4.

Revised radius is 16% smaller than previous estimates.

Abstract

We present photometry of WASP-10 during the transit of its short-period Jovian planet. We employed the novel PSF-shaping capabilities the OPTIC camera mounted on the UH 2.2m telescope to achieve a photometric precision of 4.7e-4 per 1.3 min sample. With this new light curve, in conjunction with stellar evolutionary models, we improve on existing measurements of the planetary, stellar and orbital parameters. We find a stellar radius Rstar = 0.698 +/- 0.012 Rsun and a planetary radius Rp = 1.080 +/- 0.020 Rjup. The quoted errors do not include any possible systematic errors in the stellar evolutionary models. Our measurement improves the precision of the planet's radius by a factor of 4, and revises the previous estimate downward by 16% (2.5sigma, where sigma is the quadrature sum of the respective confidence limits). Our measured radius of WASP-10b is consistent with previously published theoretical radii for irradiated Jovian planets.