Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astronomical Journal, 2(150), p. 49, 2015

DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/150/2/49

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

HATS-8b: A Low-Density Transiting Super-Neptune

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

HATS-8b is a low density transiting super-Neptune discovered as part of the HATSouth project. The planet orbits its solar-like G dwarf host (V=14.03 $±$ 0.10 and T$_{eff}$ =5679 $±$ 50 K) with a period of 3.5839 d. HATS-8b is the third lowest mass transiting exoplanet to be discovered from a wide-field ground based search, and with a mass of 0.138 $±$ 0.019 M$_J$ it is approximately half-way between the masses of Neptune and Saturn. However HATS-8b has a radius of 0.873 (+0.123,-0.075) R$_J$, resulting in a bulk density of just 0.259 $±$ 0.091 g.cm$^{-3}$. The metallicity of the host star is super-Solar ([Fe/H]=0.210 $±$ 0.080), arguing against the idea that low density exoplanets form from metal-poor environments. The low density and large radius of HATS-8b results in an atmospheric scale height of almost 1000 km, and in addition to this there is an excellent reference star of near equal magnitude at just 19 arcsecond separation on the sky. These factors make HATS-8b an exciting target for future atmospheric characterization studies, particularly for long-slit transmission spectroscopy. ; Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in AJ