scholarly journals Seeing above the clouds with high-resolution spectroscopy

2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-204
Author(s):  
Siddharth Gandhi ◽  
Matteo Brogi ◽  
Rebecca K Webb

ABSTRACT In the last decade, ground-based high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy (HRS) has detected numerous species in transiting and non-transiting hot Jupiters, and is ideally placed for atmospheric characterization of warm Neptunes and super Earths. Many of these cooler and smaller exoplanets have shown cloudy atmospheres from low-resolution near-infrared observations, making constraints on chemical species difficult. We investigate how HRS can improve on these given its sensitivity to spectral line cores which probe higher altitudes above the clouds. We model transmission spectra for the warm Neptune GJ 3470b and determine the detectability of H2O with the CARMENES, GIANO, and SPIRou spectrographs. We also model a grid of spectra for another warm Neptune, GJ 436b, over a range of cloud-top pressure and H2O abundance. We show H2O is detectable for both planets with modest observational time and that the high H2O abundance-high cloud deck degeneracy is broken with HRS. However, meaningful constraints on abundance and cloud-top pressure are only possible in the high-metallicity scenario. We also show that detections of CH4 and NH3 are possible from cloudy models of GJ 436b. Lastly, we show how the presence of the Earth’s transmission spectrum hinders the detection of H2O for the most cloudy scenarios given that telluric absorption overlaps with the strongest H2O features. The constraints possible with HRS on the molecular species can be used for compositional analysis and to study the chemical diversity of such planets in the future.

2020 ◽  
Vol 645 ◽  
pp. A19
Author(s):  
C. Fanelli ◽  
L. Origlia ◽  
E. Oliva ◽  
A. Mucciarelli ◽  
N. Sanna ◽  
...  

Context. High-resolution spectroscopy in the near-infrared (NIR) is a powerful tool for characterising the physical and chemical properties of cool-star atmospheres. The current generation of NIR echelle spectrographs enables the sampling of many spectral features over the full 0.9–2.4 μm range for a detailed chemical tagging. Aims. Within the Stellar Population Astrophysics Large Program at the TNG, we used a high-resolution (R = 50 000) NIR spectrum of Arcturus acquired with the GIANO-B echelle spectrograph as a laboratory to define and calibrate an optimal line list and new diagnostic tools to derive accurate stellar parameters and chemical abundances. Methods. We inspected several hundred NIR atomic and molecular lines to derive abundances of 26 different chemical species, including CNO, iron-group, alpha, Z-odd, and neutron-capture elements. We then performed a similar analysis in the optical using Arcturus VLT-UVES spectra. Results. Through the combined NIR and optical analysis we defined a new thermometer and a new gravitometer for giant stars, based on the comparison of carbon (for the thermometer) and oxygen (for the gravitometer) abundances, as derived from atomic and molecular lines. We then derived self-consistent stellar parameters and chemical abundances of Arcturus over the full 4800–24 500 Å spectral range and compared them with previous studies in the literature. We finally discuss a number of problematic lines that may be affected by deviations from thermal equilibrium and/or chromospheric activity, as traced by the observed variability of He I at 10 830 Å.


2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (1) ◽  
pp. 1094-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Kossakowski ◽  
Néstor Espinoza ◽  
Rafael Brahm ◽  
Andrés Jordán ◽  
Thomas Henning ◽  
...  

Abstract We present the discovery of TYC9191-519-1b (TOI-150b, TIC 271893367) and HD271181b (TOI-163b, TIC 179317684), two hot Jupiters initially detected using 30-min cadence Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) photometry from Sector 1 and thoroughly characterized through follow-up photometry (CHAT, Hazelwood, LCO/CTIO, El Sauce, TRAPPIST-S), high-resolution spectroscopy (FEROS, CORALIE), and speckle imaging (Gemini/DSSI), confirming the planetary nature of the two signals. A simultaneous joint fit of photometry and radial velocity using a new fitting package juliet reveals that TOI-150b is a $1.254\pm 0.016\ \rm {R}_ \rm{J}$, massive ($2.61^{+0.19}_{-0.12}\ \rm {M}_ \rm{J}$) hot Jupiter in a 5.857-d orbit, while TOI-163b is an inflated ($R_ \rm{P}$ = $1.478^{+0.022}_{-0.029} \,\mathrm{ R}_ \rm{J}$, $M_ \rm{P}$ = $1.219\pm 0.11 \, \rm{M}_ \rm{J}$) hot Jupiter on a P = 4.231-d orbit; both planets orbit F-type stars. A particularly interesting result is that TOI-150b shows an eccentric orbit ($e=0.262^{+0.045}_{-0.037}$), which is quite uncommon among hot Jupiters. We estimate that this is consistent, however, with the circularization time-scale, which is slightly larger than the age of the system. These two hot Jupiters are both prime candidates for further characterization – in particular, both are excellent candidates for determining spin-orbit alignments via the Rossiter–McLaughlin (RM) effect and for characterizing atmospheric thermal structures using secondary eclipse observations considering they are both located closely to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Continuous Viewing Zone (CVZ).


Geosciences ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Benatti

Exoplanet research has shown an incessant growth since the first claim of a hot giant planet around a solar-like star in the mid-1990s. Today, the new facilities are working to spot the first habitable rocky planets around low-mass stars as a forerunner for the detection of the long-awaited Sun-Earth analog system. All the achievements in this field would not have been possible without the constant development of the technology and of new methods to detect more and more challenging planets. After the consolidation of a top-level instrumentation for high-resolution spectroscopy in the visible wavelength range, a huge effort is now dedicated to reaching the same precision and accuracy in the near-infrared. Actually, observations in this range present several advantages in the search for exoplanets around M dwarfs, known to be the most favorable targets to detect possible habitable planets. They are also characterized by intense stellar activity, which hampers planet detection, but its impact on the radial velocity modulation is mitigated in the infrared. Simultaneous observations in the visible and near-infrared ranges appear to be an even more powerful technique since they provide combined and complementary information, also useful for many other exoplanetary science cases.


Author(s):  
Gloria Guilluy ◽  
Alessandro Sozzetti ◽  
Paolo Giacobbe ◽  
Aldo S. Bonomo ◽  
Giuseppina Micela

AbstractSince the first discovery of an extra-solar planet around a main-sequence star, in 1995, the number of detected exoplanets has increased enormously. Over the past two decades, observational instruments (both onboard and on ground-based facilities) have revealed an astonishing diversity in planetary physical features (i. e. mass and radius), and orbital parameters (e.g. period, semi-major axis, inclination). Exoplanetary atmospheres provide direct clues to understand the origin of these differences through their observable spectral imprints. In the near future, upcoming ground and space-based telescopes will shift the focus of exoplanetary science from an era of “species discovery” to one of “atmospheric characterization”. In this context, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large (Ariel) survey, will play a key role. As it is designed to observe and characterize a large and diverse sample of exoplanets, Ariel will provide constraints on a wide gamut of atmospheric properties allowing us to extract much more information than has been possible so far (e.g. insights into the planetary formation and evolution processes). The low resolution spectra obtained with Ariel will probe layers different from those observed by ground-based high resolution spectroscopy, therefore the synergy between these two techniques offers a unique opportunity to understanding the physics of planetary atmospheres. In this paper, we set the basis for building up a framework to effectively utilise, at near-infrared wavelengths, high-resolution datasets (analyzed via the cross-correlation technique) with spectral retrieval analyses based on Ariel low-resolution spectroscopy. We show preliminary results, using a benchmark object, namely HD 209458 b, addressing the possibility of providing improved constraints on the temperature structure and molecular/atomic abundances.


2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddharth Gandhi ◽  
Matteo Brogi ◽  
Sergei N Yurchenko ◽  
Jonathan Tennyson ◽  
Phillip A Coles ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT High-resolution spectroscopy (HRS) has been used to detect a number of species in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters. Key to such detections is accurately and precisely modelled spectra for cross-correlation against the R ≳ 20 000 observations. There is a need for the latest generation of opacities which form the basis for high signal-to-noise detections using such spectra. In this study we present and make publicly available cross-sections for six molecular species, H2O, CO, HCN, CH4, NH3, and CO2 using the latest line lists most suitable for low- and high-resolution spectroscopy. We focus on the infrared (0.95–5 μm) and between 500 and 1500 K where these species have strong spectral signatures. We generate these cross-sections on a grid of pressures and temperatures typical for the photospheres of super-Earth, warm Neptunes, and hot Jupiters using the latest H2 and He pressure broadening. We highlight the most prominent infrared spectral features by modelling three representative exoplanets, GJ 1214 b, GJ 3470 b, and HD 189733 b, which encompass a wide range in temperature, mass, and radii. In addition, we verify the line lists for H2O, CO, and HCN with previous high-resolution observations of hot Jupiters. However, we are unable to detect CH4 with our new cross-sections from HRS observations of HD 102195 b. These high-accuracy opacities are critical for atmospheric detections with HRS and will be continually updated as new data become available.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S249) ◽  
pp. 359-368
Author(s):  
A. Carmona ◽  
M. E. van den Ancker ◽  
Th. Henning ◽  
Ya. Pavlyuchenkov ◽  
C. P. Dullemond ◽  
...  

AbstractThe mass and dynamics of protoplanetary disks are dominated by molecular hydrogen (H2). However, observationally very little is known about the H2. In this paper, we discuss two projects aimed to constrain the properties of H2 in the disk's planet forming region (R<50AU). First, we present a sensitive survey for pure-rotational H2 emission at 12.278 and 17.035 μm in a sample of nearby Herbig Ae/Be and T Tauri stars using VISIR, ESO's VLT high-resolution mid-infrared spectrograph. Second, we report on a search for H2 ro-vibrational emission at 2.1228, 2.2233 and 2.2477 μm in the classical T Tauri star LkHα 264 and the debris disk 49 Cet employing CRIRES, ESO's VLT high-resolution near-infrared spectrograph.VISIR project: none of the sources show H2 mid-IR emission. The observed disks contain less than a few tenths of MJupiter of optically thin H2 at 150 K, and less than a few MEarth at T>300 K. % and higher T. Our non-detections are consistent with the low flux levels expected from the small amount of H2 gas in the surface layer of a Chiang and Goldreich (1997) Herbig Ae two-layer disk model. In our sources the H2 and dust in the surface layer have not significantly departed from thermal coupling (Tgas/Tdust<2) and the gas-to-dust ratio in the surface layer is very likely <1000.CRIRES project: The H2 lines at 2.1218 μm and 2.2233 μm are detected in LkHα 264. An upper limit on the 2.2477 μm H2 line flux in LkHα 264 is derived. 49 Cet does not exhibit H2 emission in any of observed lines. There are a few MMoon of optically thin hot H2 in the inner disk (∼0.1 AU) of LkHα 264, and less than a tenth of a MMoon of hot H2 in the inner disk of 49 Cet. The shape of the 1–0 S(0) line indicates that LkHα disk is close to face-on (i<35o). The measured 1–0 S(0)/1–0 S(1) and 2–1 S(1)/1–0 S(1) line ratios in LkHα 264 indicate that the H2 is thermally excited at T<1500 K. The lack of H2 emission in the NIR spectra of 49 Cet and the absence of Hα emission suggest that the gas in the inner disk of 49 Cet has dissipated.


2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 543-546
Author(s):  
E. Cianci ◽  
V. Foglietti ◽  
F. Vitali ◽  
D. Lorenzetti ◽  
A. Notargiacomo ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 71-72 ◽  
pp. 347-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Afşar ◽  
Z. Bozkurt ◽  
G. Böcek Topçu ◽  
G. Şehitoğlu ◽  
C. Sneden ◽  
...  

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