Starspots on WASP-107 and pulsations of WASP-118

Authors: T. Močnik, C. Hellier, D. R. Anderson, B. J. M. Clark, J. Southworth

arXiv: 1702.05078v2 - DOI (astro-ph.EP)
8 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Abstract: By analysing the K2 short-cadence photometry we detect starspot occultation events in the lightcurve of WASP-107, the host star of a warm-Saturn exoplanet. WASP-107 also shows a rotational modulation with a period of 17.5 +/- 1.4 d. Given that the rotational period is nearly three times the planet's orbital period, one would expect in an aligned system to see starspot occultation events to recur every three transits. The absence of such occultation recurrences suggests a misaligned orbit unless the starspots' lifetimes are shorter than the star's rotational period. We also find stellar variability resembling gamma Doradus pulsations in the lightcurve of WASP-118, which hosts an inflated hot Jupiter. The variability is multi-periodic with a variable semi-amplitude of about 200 ppm. In addition to these findings we use the K2 data to refine the parameters of both systems, and report non-detections of transit-timing variations, secondary eclipses and any additional transiting planets. We used the upper limits on the secondary-eclipse depths to estimate upper limits on the planetary geometric albedos of 0.7 for WASP-107b and 0.2 for WASP-118b.

Submitted to arXiv on 16 Feb. 2017

Explore the paper tree

Click on the tree nodes to be redirected to a given paper and access their summaries and virtual assistant

Also access our AI generated Summaries, or ask questions about this paper to our AI assistant.

Look for similar papers (in beta version)

By clicking on the button above, our algorithm will scan all papers in our database to find the closest based on the contents of the full papers and not just on metadata. Please note that it only works for papers that we have generated summaries for and you can rerun it from time to time to get a more accurate result while our database grows.