TRANSMISSION SPECTROSCOPY OF THE HOT JUPITER WASP-12b FROM 0.7 TO 5 μm
Since the first report of a potentially non-solar carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) in its dayside atmosphere, the highly irradiated exoplanet WASP-12b has been under intense scrutiny and the subject of many follow-up observations. Additionally, the recent discovery of stellar binary companions~1" f...
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| Vydáno v: | The Astronomical journal Ročník 147; číslo 6; s. 161 - 18 |
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| Hlavní autoři: | , , , , , , , |
| Médium: | Journal Article |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Vydáno: |
United States
01.06.2014
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| Témata: | |
| ISSN: | 0004-6256, 1538-3881, 1538-3881 |
| On-line přístup: | Získat plný text |
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| Shrnutí: | Since the first report of a potentially non-solar carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) in its dayside atmosphere, the highly irradiated exoplanet WASP-12b has been under intense scrutiny and the subject of many follow-up observations. Additionally, the recent discovery of stellar binary companions~1" fromWASP-12 has obfuscated interpretation of the observational data. Here we present new ground-based multi-object transmission-spectroscopy observations of WASP-12b that we acquired over two consecutive nights in the red optical with Gemini-N/GMOS. After correcting for the influence of WASP-12's stellar companions, we find that these data rule out a cloud-free H2 atmosphere with no additional opacity sources. We detect features in the transmission spectrum that may be attributed to metal oxides (such as TiO and VO) for an O-rich atmosphere or to metal hydrides (such as TiH) for a C-rich atmosphere. We also reanalyzed NIR transit-spectroscopy observations of WASP-12b from HST/WFC3 and broadband transit photometry from Warm Spitzer. We attribute the broad spectral features in theWFC3 data to either H sub(2)O or CH sub(4) and HCN for an O-rich or C-rich atmosphere, respectively. The Spitzer data suggest shallower transit depths than the models predict at infrared wavelengths, albeit at low statistical significance. A multi-instrument, broad-wavelength analysis ofWASP-12b suggests that the transmission spectrum is well approximated by a simple Rayleigh scattering model with a planet terminator temperature of 1870 + or - 130 K. We conclude that additional high-precision data and isolated spectroscopic measurements of the companion stars are required to place definitive constraints on the composition of WASP-12b's atmosphere. |
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| Bibliografie: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 0004-6256 1538-3881 1538-3881 |
| DOI: | 10.1088/0004-6256/147/6/161 |