Saturday, July 16, 2016

Two Inflated Hot-Jupiters with Contrasting Densities

Figure 1: Artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter.

Barros et al. (2016) present the discovery of two inflated hot-Jupiters with contrasting densities. The two hot-Jupiters are identified as WASP-113b and WASP-114b. Both hot-Jupiters orbit Sun-like host stars. The orbital period of WASP-113b is 4.542 days and the orbital period of WASP-114b is 1.549 days. Transit and radial velocity measurements indicate that WASP-113b has ~0.475 times the mass and ~1.409 times the radius of Jupiter, while WASP-114b has ~1.769 times the mass and ~1.339 times the radius of Jupiter.

The large radii indicate that both WASP-113b and WASP-114b are inflated. Nevertheless, they have contrasting densities. WASP-113b has ~0.172 times the density of Jupiter and WASP-114b has ~0.73 times the density of Jupiter. This means WASP-114b is over 4 times denser than WASP-113b. Finally, the equilibrium temperatures of WASP-113b and WASP-114b are ~1500 K and ~2050 K, respectively.

Figure 2: Phase folded transit light curves indicating the presence of WASP-113b (top) and WASP-114b (bottom). Barros et al. (2016)

Reference:
Barros et al. (2016), "Discovery of WASP-113b and WASP-114b, two inflated hot-Jupiters with contrasting densities", arXiv:1607.02341 [astro-ph.EP]