Prospects of long-time-series observations from Dome C for transit search

Abstract

The detection of transiting extrasolar planets requires high-photometric quality and long-duration photometric stellar time-series. In this paper, we investigate the advantages provided by the Antarctic observing platform Dome C for planet transit detections during its long winter period, which allows for relatively long, uninterrupted time-series. Our calculations include limiting effects due to the Sun and Moon, cloud coverage and the effect of reduced photometric quality for high extinction of target fields. We compare the potential for long time-series from Dome C with a single site in Chile, a three-site low-latitude network as well as combinations of Dome C with Chile and the network, respectively. Dome C is one of the prime astronomical sites on Earth for obtaining uninterrupted long-duration observations in terms of prospects for a high observational duty cycle. The duty cycle of a project can, however, be significantly improved by integrating Dome C into a network of sites.

arXiv comment10 pages, 9 figures, accepted by PASP

References in corpus (2)

• Atmospheric scintillation at Dome C, Antarctica: implications for photometry and astrometry
• A review of optical sky brightness and extinction at Dome C, Antarctica

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• Transit Search from Antarctica and Chile - Comparison and Combination
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• Characterization of CoRoT target fields with BEST: Identification of periodic variable stars in the LRa1 field
• The Science Case for PILOT III: the Nearby Universe
• The Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope II. Catalog of Variable Stars. I. Characterization of Three Southern Target Fields