Detailed Bayesian Analysis of the CoRoT-7 Lightcurve

Parviainen, H.; Deeg, H.
Referencia bibliográfica

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #19.13

Fecha de publicación:
9
2011
Número de autores
2
Número de autores del IAC
2
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
With a mass of 7.4 Earth masses and radius of 1.6 Earth radii, CoRoT-7b is among the smallest transiting planets found to date. Due to its small size, the transit signal is very shallow, which makes the estimation of the planetary parameters from the light curve challenging. We carry out a Bayesian analysis of the CoRoT-7b lightcurve using a minimalistic approach to the pre-processing of the data. We use parallel tempering Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations to gain a comprehensive view of the geometric and planetary parameter probability distributions, including the possibility for transit timing variations. Furthermore, we assess whether the use of a quadratic limb-darkening model is justified given the accuracy of the data, and how the choice of the limb-darkening model affects the geometric and planetary parameters inferred from the PTMCMC simulations. This research is supported by RoPACS, a Marie Curie Initial Training Network funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme.