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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

DETECTION OF H2O AND EVIDENCE FOR TiO/VO IN AN ULTRA-HOT EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERE

Evans, Thomas M., Sing, David K., Wakeford, Hannah R., Nikolov, Nikolay, Ballester, Gilda E., Drummond, Benjamin, Kataria, Tiffany, Gibson, Neale P., Amundsen, David S., Spake, Jessica 21 April 2016 (has links)
We present a primary transit observation for the ultra-hot (T-eq similar to 2400 K) gas giant expolanet WASP-121b, made using the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 in spectroscopic mode across the 1.12-1.64 mu m wavelength range. The 1.4 mu m water absorption band is detected at high confidence (5.4 sigma) in the planetary atmosphere. We also reanalyze ground-based photometric light curves taken in the B, r', and z' filters. Significantly deeper transits are measured in these optical bandpasses relative to the near-infrared wavelengths. We conclude that scattering by high-altitude haze alone is unlikely to account for this difference and instead interpret it as evidence for titanium oxide and vanadium oxide absorption. Enhanced opacity is also inferred across the 1.12-1.3 mu m wavelength range, possibly due to iron hydride absorption. If confirmed, WASP-121b will be the first exoplanet with titanium oxide, vanadium oxide, and iron hydride detected in transmission. The latter are important species in M/L dwarfs and their presence is likely to have a significant effect on the overall physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, including the production of a strong thermal inversion.

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