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| Paper: |
Spectroscopic Follow-up Observations of Planetary Transit Candidates Identified by Project Vulcan |
| Volume: |
294, Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets |
| Page: |
409 |
| Authors: |
Latham, D. W. |
| Abstract: |
We have used the CfA Digital Speedometers to carry out spectroscopic follow-up observations of 35 planetary transit candidates identified by project Vulcan. Nine of the candidates prove to have stellar companions with orbital motions consistent with the transits found by Vulcan. This demonstrates that Vulcan has succeeded in identifying real photometric variations of the sort expected for transits by close-in giant planets, with dips of up to a few percent and periods of up to several days. Three of the systems with orbital solutions are double-lined spectroscopic binaries, and grazing eclipses are the source of the photometric variations. Another two of the systems are triples, with a constant third star diluting the depth of the eclipses in a nearby eclipsing binary. For the four systems that are single-lined, the orbital solutions suggest that the light curves are due to eclipses by small M-dwarf companions. A few of the candidates, all with marginal transit detections, show no velocity variations at the level of about 0.5 k/ms. If they have orbital companions responsible for the observed photometric variations, the masses must be less than about 10 Jupiter masses. |
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