HAT-P-16b: A 4 Mj Planet Transiting A Bright Star On An Eccentric Orbit

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and characterization of HAT-P-16b, a 4 Jupiter-mass gas giant orbiting a bright star with a slight eccentricity, providing insights into its physical properties and orbital dynamics.

Contribution

The paper presents the first detailed characterization of HAT-P-16b, including its mass, radius, and eccentric orbit, expanding knowledge of gas giant exoplanets around bright stars.

Findings

HAT-P-16b has a mass of approximately 4.2 MJ and a radius of about 1.29 RJ.

The planet's orbit has a small but significant eccentricity of 0.036.

HAT-P-16b's properties are consistent with a 1 Gyr old H/He-dominated gas giant.

Abstract

We report the discovery of HAT-P-16b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting the V = 10.8 mag F8 dwarf GSC 2792-01700, with a period P = 2.775960 +- 0.000003 d, transit epoch Tc = 2455027.59293 +- 0.00031 (BJD), and transit duration 0.1276 +- 0.0013 d. The host star has a mass of 1.22 +- 0.04 Msun, radius of 1.24 +- 0.05 Rsun, effective temperature 6158 +-80 K, and metallicity [Fe/H] = +0.17 +- 0.08. The planetary companion has a mass of 4.193 +- 0.094 MJ, and radius of 1.289 +- 0.066 RJ yielding a mean density of 2.42 +- 0.35 g/cm3. Comparing these observed characteristics with recent theoretical models, we find that HAT-P-16b is consistent with a 1 Gyr H/He-dominated gas giant planet. HAT-P-16b resides in a sparsely populated region of the mass{radius diagram and has a non-zero eccentricity of e = 0.036 with a significance of 10 sigma.