INFRARED TRANSMISSION SPECTROSCOPY OF THE EXOPLANETS HD 209458b AND XO-1b USING THE WIDE FIELD CAMERA-3 ON THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
Drake Deming,Drake Deming,A. Wilkins,Peter R. McCullough,Adam Burrows,Jonathan J. Fortney,Eric Agol,Eric Agol,Ian Dobbs-Dixon,Ian Dobbs-Dixon,Nikku Madhusudhan,Nicolas Crouzet,Jean-Michel Desert,Ronald L. Gilliland,Korey Haynes,Korey Haynes,Heather Knutson,Michael R. Line,Zazralt Magic,Avi Mandell,Sukrit Ranjan,David Charbonneau,Mark Clampin,Sara Seager,Adam P. Showman +24 more
TLDR
In this paper, the authors reported WFC3 spectroscopy of the giant planets HD 209458b and XO-1b in transit, using spatial scanning mode for maximum photon-collecting efficiency.Abstract:
Exoplanetary transmission spectroscopy in the near-infrared using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) NICMOS is currently ambiguous because different observational groups claim different results from the same data, depending on their analysis methodologies. Spatial scanning with HST/WFC3 provides an opportunity to resolve this ambiguity. We here report WFC3 spectroscopy of the giant planets HD 209458b and XO-1b in transit, using spatial scanning mode for maximum photon-collecting efficiency. We introduce an analysis technique that derives the exoplanetary transmission spectrum without the necessity of explicitly decorrelating instrumental effects, and achieves nearly photon-limited precision even at the high flux levels collected in spatial scan mode. Our errors are within 6% (XO-1) and 26% (HD 209458b) of the photon-limit at a resolving power of λ/δλ ~ 70, and are better than 0.01% per spectral channel. Both planets exhibit water absorption of approximately 200 ppm at the water peak near 1.38 μm. Our result for XO-1b contradicts the much larger absorption derived from NICMOS spectroscopy. The weak water absorption we measure for HD 209458b is reminiscent of the weakness of sodium absorption in the first transmission spectroscopy of an exoplanet atmosphere by Charbonneau et al. Model atmospheres having uniformly distributed extra opacity of 0.012 cm2 g−1 account approximately for both our water measurement and the sodium absorption. Our results for HD 209458b support the picture advocated by Pont et al. in which weak molecular absorptions are superposed on a transmission spectrum that is dominated by continuous opacity due to haze and/or dust. However, the extra opacity needed for HD 209458b is grayer than for HD 189733b, with a weaker Rayleigh component.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Disentangling the Planet from the Star in Late-Type M Dwarfs: A Case Study of TRAPPIST-1g
Hannah R. Wakeford,Nikole K. Lewis,Julia Fowler,Giovanni Bruno,Tom J. Wilson,Sarah E. Moran,Jeff A. Valenti,Natasha E. Batalha,Joseph C. Filippazzo,Vincent Bourrier,Sarah M. Hörst,Sarah M. Hörst,Susan M. Lederer,J. de Wit +13 more
TL;DR: In this article, a case study on TRAPPIST-1g, the largest planet in the system, using a new observation together with previous data, disentangle the atmospheric transmission of the planet from that of the star.
Journal ArticleDOI
Simulating the cloudy atmospheres of HD 209458 b and HD 189733 b with the 3D Met Office Unified Model
Stefan Lines,Nathan J. Mayne,Ian A. Boutle,James Manners,Graham K. H. Lee,Christiane Helling,Benjamin Drummond,David S. Amundsen,Jayesh M. Goyal,David M. Acreman,Pascal Tremblin,Max Kerslake +11 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the 3D Met Office Unified Model (UM) is used to solve for the formation of condensation seeds, surface growth and evaporation, gravitational settling and advection, cloud radiative feedback via absorption and, crucially, scattering.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Complete transmission spectrum of WASP-39b with a precise water constraint
Hannah R. Wakeford,Hannah R. Wakeford,David K. Sing,Drake Deming,Nikole K. Lewis,Nikole K. Lewis,Jayesh M. Goyal,Tom J. Wilson,Joanna K. Barstow,Tiffany Kataria,Benjamin Drummond,Thomas M. Evans,Aarynn L. Carter,Nikolay Nikolov,Heather A. Knutson,Gilda E. Ballester,Avi Mandell +16 more
TL;DR: WASP-39b as mentioned in this paper is a hot Saturn-mass exoplanet with a predicted clear atmosphere based on observations in the optical and infrared spectroscopic grisms, and it has a predicted high amplitude H2O feature centered at 1.4 microns and smaller amplitude features at 0.95 and 1.2 microns, with a maximum water absorption amplitude of 2.4 planetary scale heights.
Journal ArticleDOI
Search for water in a super-Earth atmosphere: High-resolution optical spectroscopy of 55 Cancri e
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the analysis of high-resolution optical spectra of four transits of 55Cnc e, a low-density, super-Earth that orbits a nearby Sun-like star in under 18 hours.
Journal ArticleDOI
Exonephology: transmission spectra from a 3D simulated cloudy atmosphere of HD 209458b
Stefan Lines,James Manners,James Manners,Nathan J. Mayne,Jayesh M. Goyal,Aarynn L. Carter,Ian A. Boutle,Ian A. Boutle,Graham K. H. Lee,Graham K. H. Lee,Christiane Helling,Benjamin Drummond,Dave Acreman,David K. Sing +13 more
TL;DR: The calculations for this paper were performed on the University of Exeter supercomputer, a Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) facility jointly funded by Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) studentship as mentioned in this paper.
References
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