WASP-5b: a dense, very hot Jupiter transiting a 12th-mag Southern-hemisphere star

peer reviewedWe report the discovery of WASP-5b, a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting a 12th-mag G-type star in the Southern hemisphere. The 1.6-d orbital period places WASP-5b in the class of very hot Jupiters and leads to a predicted equilibrium temperature of 1750K. WASP-5b is the densest of any known Jovian-mass planet, being a factor of 7 denser than TrES-4, which is subject to similar stellar insolation, and a factor of 3 denser than WASP-4b, which has a similar orbital period. We present transit photometry and radial velocity measurements of WASP-5 (= USNO-B10487-0799749), from which we derive the mass, radius and density of the planet: M[SUB]P[/SUB] = 1.58[SUP]+0.13[/SUP][SUB]-0.08[/SUB]M[SUB]J[/SUB],R[SUB]P[/SUB] = 1.090[SUP]+0.094[/SUP][SUB]-0.058[/SUB]R[SUB]J[/SUB] and rho[SUB]P[/SUB] = 1.22[SUP]+0.19[/SUP][SUB]-0.24[/SUB]rho[SUB]J[/SUB]. The orbital period is P = 1.6284296[SUP]+0.0000048[/SUP][SUB]-0.0000037[/SUB]d and the mid-transit epoch is T[SUB]C[/SUB](HJD) = 2454375.62466[SUP]+0.00026[/SUP][SUB]-0.00025[/SUB]