Hubble Space Telescope STIS Optical Transit Transmission Spectra of the Hot Jupiter HD 209458b

By D. Sing, A. Vidal-Madjar, J. D'esert, A. D. Étangs, Gilda E. Ballester. 2008

137 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the transmission spectra of the hot Jupiter HD 209458b taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Our analysis combines data at two resolutions and applies a complete pixel-by-pixel limb-darkening correction to fully reveal the spectral line shapes of atmospheric absorption features. Terrestrial-based Na I and H I contamination are identified that mask the strong exoplanetary absorption signature in the Na core, which we find reaches total absorption levels of ~0.11% in a 4.4 Å band. The Na spectral line profile is characterized by a wide absorption profile at the lowest absorption depths and a sharp transition to a narrow absorption profile at higher absorption values. The transmission spectra also show the presence of an additional absorber at ~6250 Å, observed at both medium and low resolutions. We performed various limb-darkening tests, including using high-precision limb-darkening measurements of the Sun to characterize a general trend of ATLAS models to slightly overestimate the amount of limb darkening at all wavelengths, likely due to the limitations of the model’s one-dimensional nature. We conclude that, despite these limitations, ATLAS models can still successfully model limb darkening in high signal-to-noise ratio transits of solar-type stars, like HD 209458, to a high level of precision over the entire optical regime (3000-10000 Å) at transit phases between second and third contact.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1c3758416f100c5760efcaca8c92b62128607b8c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. N. Madhusudhan
2. Jon Fortney
3. A. Showman
4. D. Sing
5. M. Marley
6. D. Deming
7. V. Parmentier
8. J. D'esert

In Instrumentation

1. Jon Fortney
2. N. Madhusudhan
3. D. Sing
4. A. Showman
5. M. Marley
6. H. Knutson
7. V. Parmentier
8. D. Deming

Citations in the corpus

• SEARCH FOR CARBON MONOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE TRANSITING EXOPLANET HD 189733b (2009, methodology): “In the same atmosphere, the possible presence of H2O (Barman et al. 2005), TiO and VO (Désert et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2008a,b), and the detection of the main constituent, H2, through Rayleigh scattering (Lecavelier des Etangs 2008b), have been reported using observations in the visible from the…”
• Temperature–pressure profile of the hot Jupiter HD 189733b from HST sodium observations: detection of upper atmospheric heating (2012, background): “The case of WASP-17b, which has an absorption profile that is yet different again (Wood et al. 2011), suggests a range of properties within these classes, with an even narrower line profile suggesting an optical haze appearing higher in the atmosphere than in HD 189733b or an atomic sodium abundance”
• Ground-based detection of sodium in the transmission spectrum of exoplanet HD209458b (2008, methodology): “Our results are in excellent agreement with the STIS/HST results presented by Charbonneau et al. (2002) and Sing et al. (2008a).”
• Hubble Space Telescope transmission spectroscopy of the exoplanet HD 189733b: high‐altitude atmospheric haze in the optical and near‐ultraviolet with STIS (2011, background): “However, the overall improvement of the stellar limb-darkening from the 1D model to the 3D model is very encouraging, and very much in line with c© 2011 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–?? existing tests comparing such models to the Sun (see Asplund et al. 2009 and Sing et al. 2008a).”
• DISEQUILIBRIUM CARBON, OXYGEN, AND NITROGEN CHEMISTRY IN THE ATMOSPHERES OF HD 189733b AND HD 209458b (2011, background): “…the inferred presence of hazes, clouds, and Rayleigh scatterers that can affect atmospheric spectral behavior (e.g., Charbonneau et al. 2002; Fortney et al. 2003; Fortney 2005; Iro et al. 2005; Pont et al. 2008; Lecavelier des Etangs et al. 2008a,b; Sing et al. 2008a,b, 2009; Shabram et al. 2011).”
• Spectrally resolved detection of sodium in the atmosphere of HD 189733b with the HARPS spectrograph (2015, methodology): “Furthermore, the analysis of the spacebased detection of the sodium signature of these two planets by Sing et al. (2008b), Vidal-Madjar et al. (2011), and Huitson et al. (2012), demonstrated the potential of resolving the transmitted stellar light by the planet atmosphere.”
• Stellar limb-darkening coefficients for CoRot and Kepler (2009, methodology): “In a comparison with the sun, Sing et al. (2008) found that for the widely used Kurucz 1D ATLAS stellar models1, the largest differences between existing limb-darkening data (Neckel & Labs 1994) and the 1D stellar models was at the limb, where ATLAS models predict a dramatic increase in the…”
• Transit spectrophotometry of the exoplanet HD189733b. I. Searching for water but finding haze with HST NICMOS (2009, methodology): “The optical transmission spectra of this planet shows evidence for several different layers of Na (Sing et al. 2008a,b) as well as Rayleigh scattering by molecular hydrogen (Lecavelier des Etangs et al. 2008b) and the presence of TiO/VO (Désert et al. 2008).”
• An HST optical-to-near-IR transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-19b: detection of atmospheric water and likely absence of TiO (2013, methodology): “Observations so far have had mixed results, with HD 209458b showing some of these features (Charbonneau et al. 2002; Narita et al. 2005; Sing et al. 2008; Snellen et al. 2008) while the spectrum of HD 189733b is instead dominated by a slope of increasing planetary radius with decreasing wavelength,…”
• Hubble Space Telescope hot Jupiter transmission spectral survey: a detection of Na and strong optical absorption in HAT-P-1b (2013, methodology): “…of the transmission spectrum in the range 2900− 5700 Å, is a relatively smooth featureless slope, analogous to the gradual increase of the absorption with decreasing wavelength in the optical transmission spectrum of HD 209458b (Sing et al. 2008b, also see Ballester et al. 2007; Barman 2007).”
• QUANTITATIVELY ASSESSING THE ROLE OF CLOUDS IN THE TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM OF GJ 1214b (2013, methodology): “Transmission spectroscopy has been successfully used to probe the atmospheres of hot Jupiters, enabling the detection 2 of atoms, molecules, and even clouds (e.g. Charbonneau et al. 2002; Pont et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2008).”
• A chemical model for the atmosphere of hot Jupiters (2012, background): “About 10% of them transit their host star, and their atmospheric composition and physical structure can be studied by transit spectroscopy (e.g. Charbonneau et al. 2000, 2008; Richardson et al. 2007; Tinetti et al. 2007; Sing et al. 2008; Swain et al. 2008a,b, 2009a,b; Huitson et al. 2012).”
• A NEW APPROACH TO ANALYZING HST SPATIAL SCANS: THE TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM OF HD 209458 b (2015, background): “In terms of composition, transit measurements from space and ground have confirmed the presence of sodium in the atmosphere of HD 209458 b (Charbonneau et al. 2002; Snellen et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2008).”
• HST hot-Jupiter transmission spectral survey: detection of potassium in WASP-31b along with a cloud deck and Rayleigh scattering (2014, background): “…both from the detection of Na (Charbonneau et al. 2002; Jensen et al. 2011; Nikolov et al. 2014b; Huitson et al. 2012; Redfield et al. 2008; Sing et al. 2008, 2012; Zhou & Bayliss 2012) and K (Sing et al. 2011a) atoms as well as the generally low albedos found in many hot Jupiters such as…”
• ATMOSPHERIC SULFUR PHOTOCHEMISTRY ON HOT JUPITERS (2009, background): “The distinctive interaction of S2 and HS with near ultraviolet light could make these species detectable in transit by the refurbished HST; there is evidence for a blue absorber in legacy HST data of HD 209458b (Sing et al 2008).”
• TRANSMISSION SPECTRA OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL HOT JUPITER MODEL ATMOSPHERES (2009, methodology): “The Knutson et al. (2007b) data set was further analyzed by Barman (2007) and D. Sing and collaborators (Sing et al. 2008a,b; Lecavelier des Etangs et al. 2008b; Désert et al. 2008).”