The DEdicated MONitor of EXotransits (DEMONEX): Seven Transits of XO-4b

TL;DR

This paper presents new transit observations of XO-4b using the DEMONEX telescope, refining system parameters, analyzing data detrending effects, and assessing models for stellar and planetary characteristics.

Contribution

It provides new transit data for XO-4b, evaluates the impact of data detrending and modeling choices, and refines the system parameters and spin-orbit alignment.

Findings

Detrending against CCD position and airmass affects parameter estimates.

Systematic uncertainties in radius ratio can be three times larger than statistical errors.

Choice of Rossiter-McLaughlin model significantly influences inferred stellar spin parameters.

Abstract

The DEdicated MONitor of EXotransits (DEMONEX) was a 20 inch robotic and automated telescope to monitor bright stars hosting transiting exoplanets to discover new planets and improve constraints on the properties of known transiting planetary systems. We present results for the misaligned hot Jupiter XO-4b containing 7 new transits from the DEMONEX telescope, including 3 full and 4 partial transits. We combine these data with archival light curves and archival radial velocity measurements to derive the host star mass $M_{*}=1.293_{-0.029}^{+0.030} M_\odot$ and radius $R_{*}=1.554_{-0.030}^{+0.042} R_\odot$ as well as the planet mass $M_{P}=1.615_{-0.099}^{+0.10} M_{\rm J}$ and radius $R_{P}=1.317_{-0.029}^{+0.040} R_{\rm J}$ and a refined ephemeris of $P=4.1250687\pm0.0000024$ days and $T_{0}=2454758.18978\pm0.00024 \rm {BJD_{TDB}}$. We include archival Rossiter-McLaughlin measurements of XO-4 to infer the stellar spin-planetary orbit alignment $\lambda=-40.0_{-7.5}^{+8.8}$ degrees. We test the effects of including various detrend parameters, theoretical and empirical mass-radius relations, and Rossiter-McLaughlin models. We infer that detrending against CCD position and time or airmass can improve data quality, but can have significant effects on the inferred values of many parameters --- most significantly $R_{P}/R_{*}$ and the observed central transit times $T_{C}$. In the case of $R_{P}/R_{*}$ we find that the systematic uncertainty due to detrending can be three times that of the quoted statistical uncertainties. The choice of mass-radius relation has little effect on our inferred values of the system parameters. The choice of Rossiter-McLaughlin models can have significant effects of the inferred values of $v\sin{I_{*}}$ and the stellar spin-planet orbit angle $\lambda$.