Paper: astro-ph/0508109
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 15:23:01 GMT (73kb)

Title: On the potential of extrasolar planet transit surveys

Authors: M. Gillon, F. Courbin, P. Magain, B. Borguet
Comments: 15 figures
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We analyze the respective benefits and drawbacks of ground-based and
space-based transit surveys for extrasolar planets. Based on simple but
realistic assumptions about the fraction of lower main sequence stars harboring
telluric and giant planets within the outer limit of the habitable zone, we
predict the harvests of fictitious surveys with three existing wide field
optical and near-IR cameras: the CFHT-Megacam, SUBARU-Suprime and VISTA-IR. An
additional promising instrument is considered, VISTA-Vis, currently under
development. The results are compared with the harvests predicted under exactly
the same assumptions, for the space missions COROT and KEPLER. We show that
ground-based wide field surveys may discover more giant planets than space
missions such as COROT or KEPLER, and that they are as efficient as COROT at
detecting telluric planets. The KEPLER mission remains the more promising way
of discovering telluric planets, being 50 times more efficient than any of the
ground-based surveys considered here. KEPLER might even discover telluric
planets in the habitable zone of their host star.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508109 , 73kb)