Three irradiated and bloated hot Jupiters: WASP-76b, WASP-82b, and WASP-90b

Abstract

We report on three new transiting hot Jupiter planets, discovered from the WASP surveys, which we combine with radial velocities from OHP/SOPHIE and Euler/CORALIE and photometry from Euler and TRAPPIST. The planets WASP-76b, WASP-82b, and WASP-90b are all inflated, with radii of 1.7–1.8 RJup. All three orbit hot stars, of type F5–F7, with orbits of 1.8–3.9 d, and all three stars have evolved, post-main-sequence radii (1.7–2.2 R⊙). Thus the three planets fit a known trend of hot Jupiters that receive high levels of irradiation being highly inflated. We caution, though, about the presence of a selection effect, in that non-inflated planets around ~2 R⊙ post-MS stars can often produce transits too shallow to be detected by the ground-based surveys that have found the majority of transiting hot Jupiters.