ABSTRACT We present a comprehensive analysis of planetary phase variations, including possible planetary light offsets, using eighteen quarters of data from the Kepler space telescope. Our analysis ...found fourteen systems with significant detections in each of the phase curve components: planet's phase function, secondary eclipse, Doppler boosting, and ellipsoidal variations. We model the full phase curve simultaneously, including primary and secondary transits, and derive albedos, day- and night-side temperatures and planet masses. Most planets manifest low optical geometric albedos (< 0.25), with the exception of Kepler-10b, Kepler-91b, and KOI-13b. We find that KOI-13b, with a small eccentricity of 0.0006 0.0001, is the only planet for which an eccentric orbit is favored. We detect a third harmonic for HAT-P-7b for the first time, and confirm the third harmonic for KOI-13b reported in Esteves et al.: both could be due to their spin-orbit misalignments. For six planets, we report a planetary brightness peak offset from the substellar point: of those, the hottest two (Kepler-76b and HAT-P-7b) exhibit pre-eclipse shifts or on the evening-side, while the cooler four (Kepler-7b, Kepler-8b, Kepler-12b, and Kepler-41b) peak post-eclipse or on the morning-side. Our findings dramatically increase the number of Kepler planets with detected planetary light offsets, and provide the first evidence in the Kepler data for a correlation between the peak offset direction and the planet's temperature. Such a correlation could arise if thermal emission dominates light from hotter planets that harbor hot spots shifted toward the evening-side, as theoretically predicted, while reflected light dominates cooler planets with clouds on the planet's morning-side.
For extrasolar planets discovered using the radial velocity method, the spectral characterization of the host star leads to a mass estimate of the star and subsequently of the orbiting planet. If the ...orbital velocity of the planet could be determined, the masses of both star and planet could be calculated using Newton’s law of gravity, just as in the case of stellar double-line eclipsing binaries. Here we report high-dispersion ground-based spectroscopy of a transit of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b. We see a significant wavelength shift in absorption lines from carbon monoxide in the planet’s atmosphere, which we conclude arises from a change in the radial component of the planet’s orbital velocity. The masses of the star and planet are 1.00 ± 0.22MSun and 0.64 ± 0.09MJup respectively. A blueshift of the carbon monoxide signal of approximately 2 km s−1 with respect to the systemic velocity of the host star suggests the presence of a strong wind flowing from the irradiated dayside to the non-irradiated nightside of the planet within the 0.01–0.1 mbar atmospheric pressure range probed by these observations. The strength of the carbon monoxide signal suggests a carbon monoxide mixing ratio of (1–3) × 10−3 in this planet’s upper atmosphere.
With a temperature akin to an M dwarf, WASP-33b is among the hottest Jupiters known, making it an ideal target for high-resolution optical spectroscopy. By analyzing both transmission and emission ...spectra, we aim to substantiate previous reports of atmospheric TiO and a thermal inversion within the planet's atmosphere. We observed two transits and six arcs of the phase curve with the Echelle SpectroPolarimetric Device for the Observation of Stars (ESPaDOnS) on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) on the Keck telescope, which provide high spectral resolution and ample wavelength coverage. We employ the Doppler cross-correlation technique to search for the molecular signatures of TiO and H2O in these spectra, using models based on the TiO line list of Plez. Though we cannot exclude line-list-dependent effects, our data do not corroborate previous indications of a thermal inversion. Instead we place a 3 upper limit of 10−9 on the volume mixing ratio of TiO for the T-P profile we consider. While we are unable to constrain the volume mixing ratio of water, our strongest constraint on TiO comes from dayside emission spectra. This apparent absence of a stratosphere sits in stark contrast to previous observations of WASP-33b as well as theoretical predictions for the atmospheres of highly irradiated planets. The discrepancy could be due to variances between line lists, and we stress that detection limits are only as good as the line list employed, and are only valid for the specific T-P profile considered due to the strong degeneracy between lapse rate ( ) and molecular abundance.
Hot Jupiters are a class of extrasolar planet that orbit their parent stars at very short distances. They are expected to be tidally locked, which can lead to a large temperature difference between ...their daysides and nightsides. Infrared observations of eclipsing systems have yielded dayside temperatures for a number of transiting planets. The day-night contrast of the transiting extrasolar planet HD 189733b was 'mapped' using infrared observations. It is expected that the contrast between the daysides and nightsides of hot Jupiters is much higher at visual wavelengths, shorter than that of the peak emission, and could be further enhanced by reflected stellar light. Here we report the analysis of optical photometric data obtained over 36 planetary orbits of the transiting hot Jupiter CoRoT-1b. The data are consistent with the nightside hemisphere of the planet being entirely black, with the dayside flux dominating the optical phase curve. This means that at optical wavelengths the planet's phase variation is just as we see it for the interior planets in the Solar System. The data allow for only a small fraction of reflected light, corresponding to a geometric albedo of <0.20.
ABSTRACT
High-resolution Doppler-resolved spectroscopy has opened up a new window into the atmospheres of both transiting and non-transiting exoplanets. Here, we present VLT/UVES observations of a ...transit of WASP-121b, an ‘ultra-hot’ Jupiter previously found to exhibit a temperature inversion and detections of multiple species at optical wavelengths. We present initial results using the blue arm of UVES (≈3700–5000 Å), recovering a clear signal of neutral Fe in the planet’s atmosphere at >8$\, \sigma$, which could contribute to (or even fully explain) the temperature inversion in the stratosphere. However, using standard cross-correlation methods, it is difficult to extract physical parameters such as temperature and abundances. Recent pioneering efforts have sought to develop likelihood ‘mappings’ that can be used to directly fit models to high-resolution data sets. We introduce a new framework that directly computes the likelihood of the model fit to the data, and can be used to explore the posterior distribution of parametrised model atmospheres via MCMC techniques. Our method also recovers the physical extent of the atmosphere, as well as account for time- and wavelength-dependent uncertainties. We measure a temperature of $3710^{+490}_{-510}$ K, indicating a higher temperature in the upper atmosphere when compared to low-resolution observations. We also show that the Fe i signal is physically separated from the exospheric Fe ii. However, the temperature measurements are highly degenerate with aerosol properties; detection of additional species, using more sophisticated atmospheric models, or combining these methods with low-resolution spectra should help break these degeneracies.
The giant planet orbiting tau Bootis (named tau Bootis b) was amongst the first extrasolar planets to be discovered. It is one of the brightest exoplanets and one of the nearest to us, with an ...orbital period of just a few days. Over the course of more than a decade, measurements of its orbital inclination have been announced and refuted, and have hitherto remained elusive. Here we report the detection of carbon monoxide absorption in the thermal dayside spectrum of tau Bootis b. At a spectral resolution of 100,000, we trace the change in the radial velocity of the planet over a large range in phase, determining an orbital inclination of 44.5 degree plus or minus 1.5 degree and a mass 5.95 plus or minus 0.28 times that of Jupiter, demonstrating that atmospheric characterization is possible for non-transiting planets. The strong absorption signal points to an atmosphere with a temperature that is decreasing towards higher altitudes, in contrast to the temperature inversion inferred for other highly irradiated planets. This supports the hypothesis that the absorbing compounds believed to cause such atmospheric inversions are destroyed in tau Bootis b by the ultraviolet emission from the active host star.
ABSTRACT
We analyse the transmission spectra of KELT-20b/MASCARA-2b to search for possible thermal inversion agents. The data consist of three transits obtained using HARPSN and one using CARMENES. ...We removed stellar and telluric lines before cross-correlating the residuals with spectroscopic templates produced using a 1D plane-parallel model, assuming an isothermal atmosphere and chemical equilibrium at solar metallicity. Using a likelihood-mapping method, we detect Fe i at > 13σ, Ca ii H$\&$K at > 6σ and confirm the previous detections of Fe ii, Ca ii IR Triplet, and Na i D. The detected signal of Fe i is shifted by −3.4 ± 0.4 km s−1 from the planetary rest frame, which indicates a strong day–night wind. Our likelihood-mapping technique also reveals that the absorption features of the detected species extend to different altitudes in the planet’s atmosphere. Assuming that the line lists are accurate, we do not detect other potential thermal inversion agents (NaH, MgH, AlO, SH, CaO, VO, FeH, and TiO) suggesting that non-chemical equilibrium mechanisms (e.g. a cold-trap) might have removed Ti- and V-bearing species from the upper atmosphere. Our results, therefore, show that KELT-20b/MASCARA-2b cannot possess an inversion layer caused by a TiO/VO-related mechanism. The presence of an inversion layer would therefore likely be caused by metal atoms such as Fe i and Fe ii. Finally, we report a double-peak structure in the Fe i signal in all of our data sets that could be a signature of atmospheric dynamics. However, further investigation is needed to robustly determine the origin of the signal.
OPTICAL PHASE CURVES OF KEPLER EXOPLANETS Esteves, Lisa J; DE MOOIJ, ERNST J W; Jayawardhana, Ray
The Astrophysical journal,
07/2013, Letnik:
772, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
We conducted a comprehensive search for optical phase variations of all close-in (a/R sub(sstarf) < 10) planet candidates in 15 quarters of Kepler space telescope data. After correcting for ...systematics, we found eight systems that show secondary eclipses as well as phase variations. Of these, five (Kepler-5, Kepler-6, Kepler-8, KOI-64, and KOI-2133) are new and three (TrES-2, HAT-P-7, and KOI-13) have published phase curves, albeit with many fewer observations.We model the full phase curve of each planet candidate, including the primary and secondary transits, and derive their albedos, dayside and nightside temperatures, ellipsoidal variations, and Doppler beaming. We find that KOI-64 and KOI-2133 have nightside temperatures well above their equilibrium values (while KOI-2133 also has an albedo, >1), so we conclude that they are likely to be self-luminous objects rather than planets. The other six candidates have characteristics consistent with their being planets with low geometric albedos (<0.3). For TrES-2 and KOI-13, the Kepler bandpass appears to probe atmospheric layers hotter than the planet's equilibrium temperature. For KOI-13, we detect a never-before-seen third cosine harmonic with an amplitude of 6.7 + or - 0.3 ppm and a phase shift of -1.1 + or - 0.1 rad in the phase curve residual, possibly due to its spin-orbit misalignment. We report derived planetary parameters for all six planets, including masses from ellipsoidal variations and Doppler beaming, and compare our results to published values when available. Our results nearly double the number of Kepler exoplanets with measured phase curve variations, thus providing valuable constraints on the properties of hot Jupiters.
ABSTRACT
Ultrahot Jupiters (UHJs) present excellent targets for atmospheric characterization. Their hot dayside temperatures (T ≳ 2200 K) strongly suppress the formation of condensates, leading to ...clear and highly inflated atmospheres extremely conducive to transmission spectroscopy. Recent studies using optical high-resolution spectra have discovered a plethora of neutral and ionized atomic species in UHJs, placing constraints on their atmospheric structure and composition. Our recent work has presented a search for molecular features and detection of Fe i in the UHJ WASP-121b using Very Large Telescope (VLT)/UV–Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) transmission spectroscopy. Here, we present a systematic search for atomic species in its atmosphere using cross-correlation methods. In a single transit, we uncover potential signals of 17 atomic species that we investigate further, categorizing five as strong detections, three as tentative detections, and nine as weak signals worthy of further exploration. We confirm previous detections of Cr i, V i, Ca i, K i, and exospheric H i and Ca ii made with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO), and independently re-recover our previous detection of Fe i at 8.8σ using both the blue and red arms of the UVES data. We also add a novel detection of Sc ii at 4.2σ. Our results further demonstrate the richness of UHJs for optical high-resolution spectroscopy.
Abstract
We report on Fe
i
in the dayside atmosphere of the ultra-hot-Jupiter WASP-33b, providing evidence for a thermal inversion in the presence of an atomic species. We also introduce a new way to ...constrain the planet’s brightness variation throughout its orbit, including its day–night contrast and peak phase offset, using high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy alone. We do so by analyzing high-resolution optical spectra of six arcs of the planet’s phase curve, using Echelle SpectroPolarimetric Device for the Observation of Stars (ESPaDOnS) on the Canada–France–Hawaii telescope and High Dispersion Spectrograph on the Subaru telescope. By employing a likelihood mapping technique, we explore the marginalized distributions of parameterized atmospheric models, and detect Fe
i
emission at high significance (>10.4
σ
) in our combined data sets, located at
K
p
= 222.1 ± 0.4 km s
−1
and
v
sys
= −6.5 ± 0.3 km s
−1
. Our values agree with previous reports. By accounting for WASP-33b’s brightness variation, we find evidence that its nightside flux is <10% of the dayside flux and the emission peak is shifted westward of the substellar point, assuming the spectrum is dominated by Fe
i
. Our ESPaDOnS data, which cover phases before and after the secondary eclipse more evenly, weakly constrain the phase offset to +22 ± 12 degrees. We caution that the derived volume-mixing ratio depends on our choice of temperature-pressure profile, but note it does not significantly influence our constraints on day–night contrast or phase offset. Finally, we use simulations to illustrate how observations with increased phase coverage and higher signal-to-noise ratios can improve these constraints, showcasing the expanding capabilities of high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy.
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