The Lupus Transit Survey For Hot Jupiters: Results and Lessons

TL;DR

This paper reports on a deep transit survey in the Lupus region that identified one confirmed Hot Jupiter and provided valuable insights for future exoplanet transit searches.

Contribution

It presents the results of a wide-field transit survey, including detection methods, candidate validation, and lessons learned for optimizing future exoplanet surveys.

Findings

One confirmed Hot Jupiter (Lupus-TR-3)

Two blended systems identified

One binary system discovered

Abstract

We present the results of a deep, wide-field transit survey targeting Hot Jupiter planets in the Lupus region of the Galactic plane conducted over 53 nights concentrated in two epochs separated by a year. Using the Australian National University 40-inch telescope at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), the survey covered a 0.66 sq. deg. region close to the Galactic Plane (b=11 deg.) and monitored a total of 110,372 stars (15.0<V<22.0). Using difference imaging photometry, 16,134 light curves with a photometric precision of sigma<0.025 mag were obtained. These light curves were searched for transits, and four candidates were detected that displayed low-amplitude variability consistent with a transiting giant planet. Further investigations, including spectral typing and radial velocity measurements for some candidates, revealed that of the four, one is a true planetary companion (Lupus-TR-3), two are blended systems (Lupus-TR-1 and 4), and one is a binary (Lupus-TR-2). The results of this successful survey are instructive for optimizing the observational strategy and follow-up procedure for deep searches for transiting planets, including an upcoming survey using the SkyMapper telescope at SSO.