We present secondary eclipse observations of the highly irradiated transiting brown dwarf KELT-1b. These observations represent the first constraints on the atmospheric dynamics of a highly irradiated brown dwarf, and the atmospheres of irradiated gi
ant planets at high surface gravity. Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, we measure secondary eclipse depths of 0.195+/-0.010% at 3.6um and 0.200+/-0.012% at 4.5um. We also find tentative evidence for the secondary eclipse in the z band with a depth of 0.049+/-0.023%. These measured eclipse depths are most consistent with an atmosphere model in which there is a strong substellar hotspot, implying that heat redistribution in the atmosphere of KELT-1b is low. While models with a more mild hotspot or even with dayside heat redistribution are only marginally disfavored, models with complete heat redistribution are strongly ruled out. The eclipse depths also prefer an atmosphere with no TiO inversion layer, although a model with TiO inversion is permitted in the dayside heat redistribution case, and we consider the possibility of a day-night TiO cold trap in this object. For the first time, we compare the IRAC colors of brown dwarfs and hot Jupiters as a function of effective temperature. Importantly, our measurements reveal that KELT-1b has a [3.6]-[4.5] color of 0.07+/-0.11, identical to that of isolated brown dwarfs of similarly high temperature. In contrast, hot Jupiters generally show redder [3.6]-[4.5] colors of ~0.4, with a very large range from ~0 to ~1. Evidently, despite being more similar to hot Jupiters than to isolated brown dwarfs in terms of external forcing of the atmosphere by stellar insolation, KELT-1b has an atmosphere most like that of other brown dwarfs. This suggests that surface gravity is very important in controlling the atmospheric systems of substellar mass bodies.
We report the discovery of KELT-2Ab, a hot Jupiter transiting the bright (V=8.77) primary star of the HD 42176 binary system. The host is a slightly evolved late F-star likely in the very short-lived blue-hook stage of evolution, with $teff=6148pm48{
rm K}$, $log{g}=4.030_{-0.026}^{+0.015}$ and $feh=0.034pm0.78$. The inferred stellar mass is $M_*=1.314_{-0.060}^{+0.063}$msun and the star has a relatively large radius of $R_*=1.836_{-0.046}^{+0.066}$rsun. The planet is a typical hot Jupiter with period $4.11379pm0.00001$ days and a mass of $M_P=1.524pm0.088$mj and radius of $R_P=1.290_{-0.050}^{+0.064}$rj. This is mildly inflated as compared to models of irradiated giant planets at the $sim$4 Gyr age of the system. KELT-2A is the third brightest star with a transiting planet identified by ground-based transit surveys, and the ninth brightest star overall with a transiting planet. KELT-2Abs mass and radius are unique among the subset of planets with $V<9$ host stars, and therefore increases the diversity of bright benchmark systems. We also measure the relative motion of KELT-2A and -2B over a baseline of 38 years, robustly demonstrating for the first time that the stars are bound. This allows us to infer that KELT-2B is an early K-dwarf. We hypothesize that through the eccentric Kozai mechanism KELT-2B may have emplaced KELT-2Ab in its current orbit. This scenario is potentially testable with Rossiter-McLaughlin measurements, which should have an amplitude of $sim$44 m s$^{-1}$.
The probability that an exoplanet transits its host star is high for planets in close orbits, but drops off rapidly for increasing semimajor axes. This makes transit surveys for planets with large semimajor axes orbiting bright stars impractical, sin
ce one would need to continuously observe hundreds of stars that are spread out over the entire sky. One way to make such a survey tractable is to constrain the inclination of the stellar rotation axes in advance, and thereby enhance the transit probabilities. We derive transit probabilities for stars with stellar inclination constraints, considering a reasonable range of planetary system inclinations. We find that stellar inclination constraints can improve the transit probability by almost an order of magnitude for habitable-zone planets. When applied to an ensemble of stars, such constraints dramatically lower the number of stars that need to be observed in a targeted transit survey. We also consider multiplanet systems where only one planet has an identified transit, and derive the transit probabilities for the second planet assuming a range of mutual planetary inclinations.
