(Proposal ID) S13B-105

(PI) Sato, Bun'ei

(Proposal Title)
Confirmation of Kepler Planet Candidates around Giants

(Abstract)
Detecting planetary transits is highly valuable not only because it makes an 
independent confirmation of a planet from Doppler method but also because the 
photometric transits yield unambiguous information on planet masses and radii, 
and thus mean density and interior structure, and obliquity of planetary 
orbits. Planets around giants and subgiants have been intensively surveyed 
over the decade by precise radial velocity mea-surements, mainly from the 
viewpoint of planet searches around intermediate-mass (1.5 - 5M_sun) stars. 
The planets show remarkable properties in their masses and orbital parameters. 
Unfortunately, however, it is quite difficult to detect transiting ones around 
such evolved stars because of the large sizes of the host stars. Therefore, 
our understanding of properties of planets around intermediate-mass stars are 
still far behind from those around solar-like stars. Recently, Kepler space 
telescope identified several transiting planet candidates around giant stars. 
Here we propose to confirm these candidates by precise radial velocity 
measurements with Subaru/HDS. Our observations would lead to the first 
confirmed transiting planet around evolved intermediate-mass stars.