No further evidence for a transiting inner companion to the hot Jupiter HATS‐50b

Abstract

Most hot Jupiter exoplanets do not have a nearby planetary companion in their planetary system. One remarkable exception is the system of WASP‐47 with an inner and outer nearby companion to a hot Jupiter, providing detailed constraints on its formation history. In this work, we follow up on a tentative photometric signal of a transiting inner companion to the hot Jupiter HATS‐50 b. If confirmed, it would be the third case of a hot Jupiter with an inner companion. Sixty three hours of new ground‐based photometry were employed to rule out this signal to about 96% confidence. The injection of artificial transit signals showed the data to be of sufficient quality to reveal the potential photometric feature at high significance. However, no transit signal was found. The discrete pattern of observing blocks leaves a slight chance that the transit was missed.