The Transit Light Curve Project. I. Four Consecutive Transits of the Exoplanet XO‐1b

We present RIz photometry of four consecutive transits of the newly discovered exoplanet XO-1b. We improve on the estimates of the transit parameters, finding the planetary radius to be R P = 1.184 R J , and the stellar radius to be R ⋆ = 0.928 R ☉ , assuming a stellar mass of M ⋆ = (1.00 ± 0.03) M ☉ . The uncertainties in the planetary and stellar radii are dominated by the uncertainty in the stellar mass. These uncertainties increase by a factor of 2-3 if a more conservative uncertainty of 0.10 M ☉ is assumed for the stellar mass. Our estimate of the planetary radius is smaller than that reported by McCullough and coworkers, and the resulting estimate for the mean density of XO-1b is intermediate between that of the low-density planet HD 209458b and the higher density planets TrES-1 and HD 189733b. The timings of the transits have an accuracy ranging from 0.2 to 2.5 minutes and are marginally consistent with a uniform period.