WASP-20b and WASP-28b: a hot Saturn and a hot Jupiter in near-aligned orbits around solar-type stars

We report the discovery of the planets WASP-20b and WASP-28b along with measurements of their sky-projected orbital obliquities. WASP-20b is an inflated, Saturn-mass planet (0.31 M_Jup; 1.46 R_Jup) in a 4.9-day, near-aligned (λ = 12.7 ± 4.2°) orbit around CD-24 102 (V = 10.7; F9). Due to the low density of the planet and the apparent brightness of the host star, WASP-20 is a good target for atmospheric characterisation via transmission spectroscopy. WASP-28b is an inflated, Jupiter-mass planet (0.91 M_Jup; 1.21 R_Jup) in a 3.4-day, near-aligned (λ = 8 ± 18°) orbit around a V = 12, F8 star. As intermediate-mass planets in short orbits around aged, cool stars (7^{+ 2}_-1 Gyr and 6000 ± 100 K for WASP-20; 5^{+ 3}_-2 Gyr and 6100 ± 150 K for WASP-28), their orbital alignment is consistent with the hypothesis that close-in giant planets are scattered into eccentric orbits with random alignments, which are then circularised and aligned with their stars' spins via tidal dissipation.

Based on observations made with: the WASP-South (South Africa) and SuperWASP-North (La Palma) photometric survey instruments; the C2 and EulerCam cameras and the CORALIE spectrograph, all mounted on the 1.2-m Euler-Swiss telescope (La Silla); the HARPS spectrograph on the ESO 3.6-m telescope (La Silla) under programs 072.C-0488, 082.C-0608, 084.C-0185, and 085.C-0393; and LCOGT's Faulkes Telescope North (Maui) and Faulkes Telescope South (Siding Spring).Full Tables 2 and 3 are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/575/A61