A Tentative Detection of a Starspot During Consecutive Transits of an Extrasolar Planet from the Ground: No Evidence of a Double Transiting Planet System Around TrES-1

TL;DR

This study reports a tentative detection of a starspot on TrES-1 during two consecutive transits, suggesting starspots cause transit anomalies rather than a second planet, and demonstrates a method to measure stellar rotation.

Contribution

It presents ground-based observations of starspot-induced anomalies during transits, providing evidence against a second transiting planet in the TrES-1 system.

Findings

Detected brightening anomalies during two transits.

Estimated stellar rotation period of approximately 40 days.

Supports starspot explanation over additional planet hypothesis.

Abstract

There have been numerous reports of anomalies during transits of the planet TrES-1b. Recently, Rabus and coworkers' analysis of HST observations lead them to claim brightening anomalies during transit might be caused by either a second transiting planet or a cool starspot. Observations of two consecutive transits are presented here from the University of Arizona's 61-inch Kuiper Telescope on May 12 and May 15, 2008 UT. A 5.4 +/- 1.7 mmag (0.54 +/- 0.17%) brightening anomaly was detected during the first half of the transit on May 12 and again in the second half of the transit on May 15th. We conclude that this is a tentative detection of a r greater than or equal to 6 earth radii starspot rotating on the surface of the star. We suggest that all evidence to date suggest TrES-1 has a spotty surface and there is no need to introduce a second transiting planet in this system to explain these anomalies. We are only able to constrain the rotational period of the star to 40.2 +22.9 -14.6 days, due to previous errors in measuring the alignment of the stellar spin axis with the planetary orbital axis. This is consistent with the previously observed P_obs = 33.2 +22.3 -14.3 day period. We note that this technique could be applied to other transiting systems for which starspots exist on the star in the transit path of the planet in order to constrain the rotation rate of the star. (abridged)