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A&A 405, 1137-1144 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20030675
Exoplanet detection capability of the COROT space mission
P. Bordé1, D. Rouan1 and A. Léger21 LESIA, UMR8109, Observatoire de Paris, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
e-mail: Daniel.Rouan@obspm.fr
2 Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, UMR 8617, Université Paris XI, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
e-mail: Alain.Leger@ias.fr
(Received 18 July 2003 / Accepted 25 April 2003)
Abstract
COROT will be the first high precision photometric
satellite to be launched with the aim of detecting exoplanets by
the transit method. In this paper, we present the simulations we
have carried out in order to assess the detection capability of COROT.
Using the model of stellar population synthesis of the Galaxy developed
at Besançon Observatory (Robin & Crézé 1986) and a simple
cross-correlation technique (Bordé et al. 2001), we find that COROT
has the capacity to detect numerous exoplanets, not only Jupiter and
Uranus-class ones, but also hot terrestrial planets, if they exist.
We show that small exoplanets should be mainly gathered around 14-15th
magnitude K2-M2 dwarfs and giant exoplanets around 15-16th magnitude
F7-G2 dwarfs. We study the effect of crowding and the impact of a
high stellar variability noise that both reduce the detection
capability of the instrument.
Key words: stars: planetary systems -- methods: statistical -- techniques: photometric
Offprint request: P. Bordé, Pascal.Borde@obspm.fr
© ESO 2003