Following the TraCS of exoplanets with Pan-Planets: Wendelstein-1b and Wendelstein-2b

Abstract

Hot Jupiters seem to get rarer with decreasing stellar mass. The goal of the Pan-Planets transit survey was the detection of such planets and a statistical characterization of their frequency. Here, we announce the discovery and validation of two planets found in that survey, Wendelstein-1b and Wendelstein-2b, which are two short-period hot Jupiters that orbit late K host stars. We validated them both by the traditional method of radial velocity measurements with the HIgh Resolution Echelle Spectrometer and the Habitable-zone Planet Finder instruments and then by their Transit Color Signature (TraCS). We observed the targets in the wavelength range of 4000−24 000 Å and performed a simultaneous multiband transit fit and additionally determined their thermal emission via secondary eclipse observations. Wendelstein-1b is a hot Jupiter with a radius of 1.0314−0.0061+0.0061 RJ and mass of 0.592−0.129+0.0165 MJ, orbiting a K7V dwarf star at a period of 2.66 d, and has an estimated surface temperature of about 1727−90+78 K. Wendelstein-2b is a hot Jupiter with a radius of 1.1592−0.0210+0.0204 RJ and a mass of 0.731−0.311+0.0541 MJ, orbiting a K6V dwarf star at a period of 1.75 d, and has an estimated surface temperature of about 1852−140+120 K. With this, we demonstrate that multiband photometry is an effective way of validating transiting exoplanets, in particular for fainter targets since radial velocity follow-up becomes more and more costly for those targets.