Planetary transit candidates in the CoRoT initial run: resolving their nature

With the release of CoRoT lightcurves of the Initial Run IRa01, 50 transiting planetary candidates have been published in a companion paper. About twenty of them were identified as binary stars from the CoRoT lightcurve itself. Complementary observations were conducted for 29 candidates, including ground-based photometry and radial-velocity measurements. Two giant planets were identified and fully characterized. Nineteen binaries are recognized, from which 10 are background eclipsing binaries in the CoRoT mask or triple systems, diluted by the main CoRoT target. Eight cases remain of unclear origin, one of them still being a planetary candidate. Comparison with simulations shows that the actual threshold of confirmed planet detection in this field does not yet fulfill the expectations, and a number of reasons are invoked, like the ranking process based on lightcurve analyses, and the strategy and limits of follow-up observations for targets fainter than magnitude 15.

Based on data obtained at Observatoire de Haute Provence with SOPHIE and with HARPS on the ESO 3.6 m telescope at La Silla Observatory. The CoRoT space mission, launched on December 27th 2006, has been developed and is operated by CNES, with the contribution of Austria, Belgium, Brazil , ESA (RSSD and Science Programme), Germany and Spain.

Tables 2 to 13, 15 to 17 and Figs. 4 to 7 are only available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org