Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 538, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201117681
Keywords
planetary systems; stars: fundamental parameters; techniques: photometric; techniques: radial velocities; techniques: spectroscopic
Categories
Funding
- ESO La Silla Observatory
- Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) [ESP2007-65480-C02-02, AYA2010-20982-C02-02]
- The German CoRoT team (TLS)
- University of Cologne
- DLR [50OW0204, 50OW0603, 50QP0701]
- ESA PRODEX
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- CNRS/CNES [07/0879-Corot]
- STFC [ST/G002266]
- Belgian Science Policy Office
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/G002266/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- UK Space Agency [ST/G002266/2] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/G002266/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We report the discovery by the CoRoT space mission of a new giant planet, CoRoT-20b. The planet has a mass of 4.24 +/- 0.23 M-Jup and a radius of 0.84 +/- 0.04 R-Jup. With a mean density of 8.87 +/- 1.10 g cm(-3), it is among the most compact planets known so far. Evolutionary models for the planet suggest a mass of heavy elements of the order of 800 M-circle plus if embedded in a central core, requiring a revision either of the planet formation models or both planet evolution and structure models. We note however that smaller amounts of heavy elements are expected by more realistic models in which they are mixed throughout the envelope. The planet orbits a G-type star with an orbital period of 9.24 days and an eccentricity of 0.56. The star's projected rotational velocity is v sin i = 4.5 +/- 1.0 km s(-1), corresponding to a spin period of 11.5 +/- 3.1 days if its axis of rotation is perpendicular to the orbital plane. In the framework of Darwinian theories and neglecting stellar magnetic breaking, we calculate the tidal evolution of the system and show that CoRoT-20b is presently one of the very few Darwin-stable planets that is evolving toward a triple synchronous state with equality of the orbital, planetary and stellar spin periods.
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