Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission^*

XII. CoRoT-12b: a short-period low-density planet transiting a solar analog star

¹ Université de Liège, Allée du 6 août 17, Sart Tilman, Liège 1, Belgium e-mail: michael.gillon@ulg.ac.be
² Thüringer Landessternwarte, Sternwarte 5, Tautenburg 5, 07778 Tautenburg, Germany
³ Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center, Rutherfordstrasse 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany
⁴ Research and Scientic Support Department, ESTEC/ESA, PO Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
⁵ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, 38 rue Frédéric Joliot-Curie, 13388 Marseille Cedex 13, France
⁶ Department of Physics, Denys Wilkinson Building Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH, UK
⁷ Observatoire de l'Université de Genève, 51 chemin des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
⁸ LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Place J. Janssen, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France
⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
¹⁰ Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Sud 11 & CNRS (UMR 8617), Bât. 121, 91405 Orsay, France
¹¹ Observatoire de Haute Provence, 04670 Saint Michel l'Observatoire, France
¹² Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR7095 CNRS, Université Pierre & Marie Curie, 98bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
¹³ LUTH, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
¹⁴ Rheinisches Institut für Umweltforschung an der Universität zu Köln, Aachener Strasse 209, 50931 Köln, Germany
¹⁵ McDonald Observatory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78731, USA
¹⁶ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
¹⁷ University of Vienna, Institute of Astronomy, Türkenschanzstr. 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria
¹⁸ IAG-Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil
¹⁹ Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, CNRS UMR 6202, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, BP 4229, 06304 Nice Cedex 4, France
²⁰ Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Science, Schmiedlstr. 6, 8042 Graz, Austria
²¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
²² Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, TU Berlin, Hardenbergstr. 36, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Received: 12 May 2010
Accepted: 20 June 2010

Abstract

We report the discovery by the CoRoT satellite of a new transiting giant planet in a 2.83 days orbit about a V = 15.5 solar analog star ( = 1.08 ± 0.08 , = 1.1 ± 0.1 , T_eff = 5675 ± 80 K). This new planet, CoRoT-12b, has a mass of 0.92 ± 0.07 M_Jup and a radius of 1.44 ± 0.13 R_Jup. Its low density can be explained by standard models for irradiated planets.