WFCAM Transit Survey

Information regarding this project is presented below

ESR/ER Researchers

UH ESR - Brigitta Sipocz
IoA ESR - Gabor Kovacs
IAC ESR - Felipe Murgas

UH ER - ?
IoA ER - Dimitris Mislis
IAC ER - ?

Project Description

Searching for transiting planets in the WFCAM Transit Survey: The WFCAM Transit Survey (WTS) has been obtaining data on the UK Infrared Telescope since mid 2007. WTS measures J-band light curves of ~10,000 M dwarfs over several square degrees of sky, and aims to find small planets transiting M dwarf stars with periods up to a few days. Around late M dwarfs WTS is sensitive to terrestrial sized planets that may be warm instead of hot dues to the low luminosity of these cool stars. The project involves searching light curve data for transits of varying depth and period, and then deriving criteria to prioritise candidate transits. Deep multi-band photometry is available for all survey fields, and this will be used to constrain spectral type and temperature for the M dwarfs. Follow-up will be done using additional light curve observations to verify transits and e.g. rule out blends, and low/high resolution spectroscopy (using a variety of facilities) will be used to rule out eclipsing binary stars and search for the signature of genuine orbiting planets. Space-based follow-up could also be made to measure planet properties using HST, Spitzer and JWST.

The UK Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii is carrying out a major transit survey at infrared wavelengths.	The distances of M star planets around Gliese 581 (lower) compared to solar system planets (upper), from their respective stars. The habitable zone is blue, and it can be seen that habitable M star planets are much closer-in, and thus more detectable by the transit technique (as well as other techniques). Picture credit: ESO, based on a diagram by Franck Selsis, Univ. of Bordeaux.	Artists impression of the transiting planet Tres 2. Picture credit: Jeffrey Hall, Lowell Observatory.

Project Supervisors

UH - D. Pinfield, H. Jones, J. Barnes
IoA - S. Hodgkin
IAC - E.L. Martin, F. Rodler

Other Researchers Working on Project

J. Birkby