Extra-solar planets with SKA.pdfVIP

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 4 0 8 4 7 4 v 1 2 5 A u g 2 0 0 4 The scientific promise of the SKA SKA Workshop Oxford, 2003 Kramer Rawlings Extra-solar planets with SKA Alan J. Penny Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom Abstract. SKA would have distinct capabilities for studies associated with extra-solar planets, their formation and properties. 1. Introduction This paper discusses the use of SKA in the study of extra-solar planets. It assumes a SKA with a collecting area of a square kilometre, but with many of its antennae spread over some hundreds of kilometres, giving an angular resolution of 0.1 arcsec at 20 cm. The spectral range assumed is from 2 cm to 1 metre, with the short wavelength limit determined in part by the ALMA performance. 2. Present extra-solar planet knowledge At present some hundred Jupiter-mass planets have been detected orbiting nearby stars by the radial velocity method. This method gives the orbital ra- dius, the orbit eccentricity and a lower mass limit. Statistically, the true planet masses should average some 30% greater than these lower limits. The mass lower limits are in the range of 0.1 to 15 Mjupiter and the orbital radii are the range 0.04 AU to 6 AU. Orbital eccentricities are in the range 0.0 to 0.7. The limits of and distributions within these ranges are affected by observational selection effects. One planet has been detected to transit its parent star, so a precise mass and radius can be derived. For this planet, the presence of sodium in the atmosphere has been detected through transit spectroscopy. Another planet has had its astrometric motion measured by the HST Fine Guidance Sensor, giving the mass. A few stars have two or three planets. The parent stars tend to be metal-rich. Two other transiting planets have been claimed but with limited data. Microlensing searches have not yet found any planets. Theories of planet formation are still in dispute both for giant and terrestrial p