Hot Jupiters around M dwarfs

A sensitivity analysis of the WFCAM Transit Survey

¹ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
² Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK
³ Centro de Astrobiologí a, Inst. Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
⁴ Leiden Observatory, Universiteit Leiden, Niels Bohrweg 2, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands
⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstraße, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶ Instituto de Astrofí sica de Canarias, C/ Ví a Láctea s/n, 38205 La Laguna (Tenerife), Spain

^a e-mail: gkovacs@ast.cam.ac.uk

Abstract

The WFCAM Transit Survey (WTS) is a near-infrared transit survey running on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). We conduct Monte Carlo transit injection and detection simulations for short period (<10 day) Jupiter-sized planets to characterize the sensitivity of the survey. We investigate the recovery rate as a function of period and magnitude in 2 hypothetical star-planet cases: M0–2 + hot Jupiter, M2–4 + hot Jupiter. We find that the WTS lightcurves are very sensitive to the presence of Jupiter-sized short-period transiting planets around M dwarfs. The non-detection of a hot-Jupiter around an M dwarf by the WFCAM Transit Survey allows us to place a firm upper limit of 1.9 per cent (at 95 per cent confidence) on the planet occurrence rate.