Extrasolar planets detection and characterisation: insights on the WASP survey, and details on the Spin-Orbit Alignment of Planetary System (SOAPS) project

Description
Abstract: Since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet (51 Peg Mayor & Queloz 1995) more than 830 exoplanets are now known for which precise masses and radii have been obtained. The majority of these systems have been discovered via Doppler and transit surveys such as HARPS and SuperWASP, respectively. The latter, is the  most successful planet transit survey with more than 103 planets discovered to date. I will describe the SuperWASP survey, our instruments, observing strategy and candidate identification and how SuperWASP fits into the big picture. Transiting planets offers the unique opportunity to get a glimpse at the planetary structure as they allows planetary radii, masses and hence mean densities to be directly derived when combined with accurate RVs. These parameters provide the only available direct constraint on the bulk composition of exoplanets and inform us about their formation and evolution histories. Recently the Kepler mission has pushed the boundary of planet detection towards systems of few Earth radii (so called SuperEarths) and smaller planets. Importantly the former class has no analog in our own solar systems thus understanding their internal structure and composition, as well as their formation and evolution is fundamental to bridge the gap between current discoveries and the search for Earthlike, habitable planets.The Spin-Orbit Alignment of Planetary Systems (SOAPS) project, aims to shed light on Kepler's planets formation, their migration and architecture by measuring the alignment of the planetary orbit with respect to the stellar spin axis. This degree of alignment traces the formation history and evolution of the planetary systems, and thus, allows to distinguish between different proposed migration theories.