The SuperWASP wide-field exoplanetary transit survey: Candidates from Fields 23hr < RA < 03hr

Abstract

Photometric transit surveys promise to complement the currently known sample of extra-solar planets by providing additional information on the planets and especially their radii. Here we present extra-solar planet (ESP) candidates from one such survey called, the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) obtained with the SuperWASP wide-field imaging system. Observations were taken with SuperWASP-North located in La Palma during the April to October 2004 observing season. The data cover fields between 23hr and 03hr in RA at declinations above +12. This amounts to over $\approx$400,000 stars with V magnitudes 8 to 13.5. For the stars brighter than 12.5, we achieve better than 1 percent photometric precision. Here we present 41 sources with low amplitude variability between $\approx$ 1 and 10 mmag, from which we select 12 with periods between 1.2 and 4.4 days as the most promising extrasolar planet candidates. We discuss the properties of these ESP candidates, the expected fraction of transits recovered for our sample, and implications for the frequency and detection of hot-Jupiters.