Ultra-hot Jupiters are gas giants planets whose dayside temperature is greater than 2200 K as a consequence of the strong irradiation received from the host star. These kinds of objects are perfect ...laboratories to study the chemistry of exoplanetary upper atmospheres via transmission spectroscopy. Exo-atmospheric absorption features are buried in the noise of the in-transit residual spectra. However we can retrieve information of hundreds of atmospheric absorption lines by performing a cross-correlation with an atmospheric transmission model, which allows us to greatly increase the exo-atmospheric signal. The Rossiter–McLaughlin effect and centre-to-limb variation contribute strongly at the high spectral resolution of our data. We present the first detection of Fe
I
and confirmation of absorption features of Fe
II
in the atmosphere of the ultra-hot Jupiter MASCARA-2b/KELT-20b, by using three transit observations with HARPS-N. After combining all transit observations we find a high cross-correlation signal of Fe
I
and Fe
II
with signal-to-noise ratios of 10.5 ± 0.4 and 8.6 ± 0.5, respectively. The peak absorption for both species appear to be blue-shifted with velocities of − 6.3 ± 0.8 km s
−1
for Fe
I
and − 2.8 ± 0.8 km s
−1
for Fe
II
, suggesting the presence of winds from the day- to night-side of the atmosphere of the planet. These results confirm previous studies of this planet and add a new atomic species (Fe
I
) to the long list of detected species in the atmosphere of MASCARA-2b, making it, together with KELT-9b, the most feature-rich ultra-hot Jupiter to date.
Ultra-hot Jupiters are emerging as a new class of exoplanets. Studying their chemical compositions and temperature structures will improve our understanding of their mass loss rate as well as their ...formation and evolution. We present the detection of ionized calcium in the two hottest giant exoplanets – KELT-9b and WASP-33b. By using transit datasets from CARMENES and HARPS-N observations, we achieved high-confidence-level detections of Ca II using the cross-correlation method. We further obtain the transmission spectra around the individual lines of the Ca II H&K doublet and the near-infrared triplet, and measure their line profiles. The Ca II H&K lines have an average line depth of 2.02 ± 0.17% (effective radius of 1.56 Rp) for WASP-33b and an average line depth of 0.78 ± 0.04% (effective radius of 1.47 Rp) for KELT-9b, which indicates that the absorptions are from very high upper-atmosphere layers close to the planetary Roche lobes. The observed Ca II lines are significantly deeper than the predicted values from the hydrostatic models. Such a discrepancy is probably a result of hydrodynamic outflow that transports a significant amount of Ca II into the upper atmosphere. The prominent Ca II detection with the lack of significant Ca I detection implies that calcium is mostly ionized in the upper atmospheres of the two planets.
AU Mic b is a Neptune-sized planet on an 8.47-day orbit around the nearest pre-main sequence (~20 Myr) star to the Sun, the bright (
V
= 8.81) M dwarf AU Mic. The planet was preliminary detected in ...Doppler radial velocity time series and recently confirmed to be transiting with data from the TESS mission. AU Mic b is likely to be cooling and contracting and might be accompanied by a second, more massive planet, in an outer orbit. Here, we present the observations of the transit of AU Mic b using ESPRESSO on the Very Large Telescope. We obtained a high-resolution time series of spectra to measure the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, to constrain the spin-orbit alignment of the star and planet, and to simultaneously attempt to retrieve the planet’s atmospheric transmission spectrum. These observations allowed us to study, for the first time, the early phases of the dynamical evolution of young systems. We applied different methodologies to derive the spin-orbit angle of AU Mic b, and all of them retrieve values consistent with the planet being aligned with the rotation plane of the star. We determined a conservative spin-orbit angle
λ
value of −2.96
−10.30
+10.44
degrees, indicative that the formation and migration of the planets of the AU Mic system occurred within the disc. Unfortunately, and despite the large signal-to-noise ratio of our measurements, the degree of stellar activity prevented us from detecting any features from the planetary atmosphere. In fact, our results suggest that transmission spectroscopy for recently formed planets around active young stars is going to remain very challenging, if at all possible, for the near future.
High resolution transit spectroscopy has proven to be a reliable technique for the characterization of the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres. Taking advantage of the broad spectral ...coverage of the CARMENES spectrograph, we initiated a survey aimed at characterizing a broad range of planetary systems. Here, we report our observations of three transits of GJ 3470 b with CARMENES in search of He (2
3
S) absorption. On one of the nights, the He
I
region was heavily contaminated by OH
−
telluric emission and, thus, it was not useful for our purposes. The remaining two nights had a very different signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) due to weather. They both indicate the presence of He (2
3
S) absorption in the transmission spectrum of GJ 3470 b, although a statistically valid detection can only be claimed for the night with higher S/N. For that night, we retrieved a 1.5 ± 0.3% absorption depth, translating into a
R
p
(
λ
)∕
R
p
= 1.15 ± 0.14 at this wavelength. Spectro-photometric light curves for this same night also indicate the presence of extra absorption during the planetary transit with a consistent absorption depth. The He (2
3
S) absorption is modeled in detail using a radiative transfer code, and the results of our modeling efforts are compared to the observations. We find that the mass-loss rate,
Ṁ
, is confined to a range of 3 × 10
10
g s
−1
for
T
= 6000 K to 10 × 10
10
g s
−1
for
T
= 9000 K. We discuss the physical mechanisms and implications of the He
I
detection in GJ 3470 b and put it in context as compared to similar detections and non-detections in other Neptune-size planets. We also present improved stellar and planetary parameter determinations based on our visible and near-infrared observations.
WASP-52b is a low-density hot Jupiter orbiting a moderately active K2V star. Previous low-resolution studies have revealed a cloudy atmosphere and found atomic Na above the cloud deck. Here we report ...on the detection of excess absorption at the Na doublet, the H
α
line, and the K D
1
line. We derived a high-resolution transmission spectrum based on three transits of WASP-52b, observed with the ultra-stable, high-resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO at the Very Large Telescope array. We measured a line contrast of 1.09 ± 0.16% for Na D
1
, 1.31 ± 0.13% for Na D
2
, 0.86 ± 0.13% for H
α
, and 0.46 ± 0.13% for K D
1
, with a line FWHM range of 11–22 km s
−1
. We also found that the velocity shift of these detected lines during the transit is consistent with the planet’s orbital motion, thus confirming their planetary origin. We did not observe any significant net blueshift or redshift that could be attributed to planetary winds. We used activity indicator lines as control but found no excess absorption. However, we did notice signatures arising from the Center-to-Limb variation (CLV) and the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect at these control lines. This highlights the importance of the CLV + RM correction in correctly deriving the transmission spectrum, which, if not corrected, could resemble or cancel out planetary absorption in certain cases. WASP-52b is the second non-ultra-hot Jupiter to show excess H
α
absorption after HD 189733b. Future observations targeting non-ultra-hot Jupiters that show H
α
could help reveal the relation between stellar activity and the heating processes in the planetary upper atmosphere.
The He
I
λ
10833 Å triplet is a powerful tool for characterising the upper atmosphere of exoplanets and tracing possible mass loss. Here, we analysed one transit of GJ 1214 b observed with the ...CARMENES high-resolution spectrograph to study its atmosphere via transmission spectroscopy around the He
I
triplet. Although previous studies using lower resolution instruments have reported non-detections of He
I
in the atmosphere of GJ 1214 b, we report here the first potential detection. We reconcile the conflicting results arguing that previous transit observations did not present good opportunities for the detection of He
I
, due to telluric H
2
O absorption and OH emission contamination. We simulated those earlier observations, and show evidence that the planetary signal was contaminated. From our single non-telluric-contaminated transit, we determined an excess absorption of 2.10
−0.50
+0.45
% (4.6
σ
) with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 1.30
−0.25
+0.30
Å. The detection of He
I
is statistically significant at the 4.6
σ
level, but repeatability of the detection could not be confirmed due to the availability of only one transit. By applying a hydrodynamical model and assuming an H/He composition of 98/2, we found that GJ 1214 b would undergo hydrodynamic escape in the photon-limited regime, losing its primary atmosphere with a mass-loss rate of (1.5–18) × 10
10
g s
−1
and an outflow temperature in the range of 2900–4400 K. Further high-resolution follow-up observations of GJ 1214 b are needed to confirm and fully characterise the detection of an extended atmosphere surrounding GJ 1214 b. If confirmed, this would be strong evidence that this planet has a primordial atmosphere accreted from the original planetary nebula. Despite previous intensive observations from space- and ground-based observatories, our He
I
excess absorption is the first tentative detection of a chemical species in the atmosphere of this benchmark sub-Neptune planet.
Ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs) are highly irradiated giant exoplanets with extremely high day-side temperatures, which lead to thermal dissociation of most molecular species. It is expected that the ...neutral hydrogen atom is one of the main species in the upper atmospheres of UHJs. Neutral hydrogen has been detected in several UHJs by observing their Balmer line absorption. In this work, we report four transit observations of the UHJ WASP-33b, performed with the CARMENES and HARPS-North spectrographs, and the detection of the H
α
, H
β
, and H
γ
lines in the planetary transmission spectrum. The combined H
α
transmission spectrum of the four transits has an absorption depth of 0.99 ± 0.05%, which corresponds to an effective radius of 1.31 ± 0.01
R
p
. The strong H
α
absorption indicates that the line probes the high-altitude thermosphere. We further fitted the three Balmer lines using the
PAWN
model, assuming that the atmosphere is hydrodynamic and in local thermodynamic equilibrium. We retrieved a thermosphere temperature 12 200
−1000
+1300
K and a mass-loss rate
Ṁ
= 1011.8
−0.5
+0.6
g s
−1
. The retrieved high mass-loss rate is compatible with the “Balmer-driven” atmospheric escape scenario, in which the stellar Balmer continua radiation in the near-ultraviolet is substantially absorbed by excited hydrogen atoms in the planetary thermosphere.
Temperature inversion layers are predicted to be present in ultra-hot giant planet atmospheres. Although such inversion layers have recently been observed in several ultra-hot Jupiters, the chemical ...species responsible for creating the inversion remain unidentified. Here, we present observations of the thermal emission spectrum of an ultra-hot Jupiter, WASP-189b, at high spectral resolution using the HARPS-N spectrograph. Using the cross-correlation technique, we detect a strong Fe
I
signal. The detected Fe
I
spectral lines are found in emission, which is direct evidence of a temperature inversion in the planetary atmosphere. We further performed a retrieval on the observed spectrum using a forward model with an MCMC approach. When assuming a solar metallicity, the best-fit result returns a temperature of 4320
−100
+120
K at the top of the inversion, which is significantly hotter than the planetary equilibrium temperature (2641 K). The temperature at the bottom of the inversion is determined as 2200
−800
+1000
K. Such a strong temperature inversion is probably created by the absorption of atomic species like Fe
I
.
Context.
Theoretical studies predict the presence of thermal inversions in the atmosphere of highly irradiated gas giant planets. Recent observations have identified these inversion layers. However, ...the role of different chemical species in their formation remains unclear.
Aims.
We search for the signature of the thermal inversion agents TiO and Fe in the dayside emission spectrum of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-33b.
Methods.
The spectra were obtained with CARMENES and HARPS-N, covering different wavelength ranges. Telluric and stellar absorption lines were removed with
SYSREM
. We cross-correlated the residual spectra with model spectra to retrieve the signals from the planetary atmosphere.
Results.
We find evidence for TiO at a significance of 4.9σ with CARMENES. The strength of the TiO signal drops close to the secondary eclipse. No TiO signal is found with HARPS-N. An injection-recovery test suggests that the TiO signal is below the detection level at the wavelengths covered by HARPS-N. The emission signature of Fe is detected with both instruments at significance levels of 5.7σ and 4.5σ, respectively. By combining all observations, we obtain a significance level of 7.3σ for Fe. We find the TiO signal at
K
p
= 248.0
−2.5
+2.0
km s
−1
, which is in disagreement with the Fe detection at
K
p
= 225.0
−3.5
+4.0
km s
−1
. The
K
p
value for Fe is in agreement with prior investigations. The model spectra require different temperature profiles for TiO and Fe to match the observations. We observe a broader line profile for Fe than for TiO.
Conclusions.
Our results confirm the existence of a temperature inversion layer in the planetary atmosphere. The observed
K
p
offset and different strengths of broadening in the line profiles suggest the existence of a TiO-depleted hot spot in the planetary atmosphere.
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