Related papers: Rayleigh scattering by H2 in the extrasolar planet…
Observations of exoplanet transit spectra are essential to understanding the physics and chemistry of distant worlds. The effects of opacity sources and many physical processes combine to set the shape of a transit spectrum. Two such key…
Accurate estimations of atmospheric properties of exoplanets from transmission spectra require understanding of degeneracies between model parameters and observations that can resolve them. We conduct a systematic investigation of such…
We present a theory for interpreting the sodium lines detected in transmission spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres. Previous analyses employed the isothermal approximation and dealt only with the transit radius. By recognising the…
High resolution spectroscopy (R > 20,000) is currently the only known method to constrain the orbital solution and atmospheric properties of non-transiting hot Jupiters. It does so by resolving the spectral features of the planet into a…
We compute models of the transmission spectra of planets HD 209458b, HD 189733b, and generic hot Jupiters. We examine the effects of temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity for the generic planets as a guide to understanding…
We report the detection of the secondary eclipse of the hot Jupiter HD 209458b in optical/visible light using the CHEOPS space telescope. Our measurement of 20.4 +/- 3.3 ppm translates into a geometric albedo of A_g = 0.096 +/- 0.016. The…
Extrasolar planetary transits are powerful tools to probe their atmosphere and to extract key physical properties of planets, like their mean densities, chemical compositions, or atmospheric structures. Every 3.5 days, the transits of the…
We have developed a pseudo two-dimensional model of a planetary atmosphere, which takes into account thermochemical kinetics, photochemistry, vertical mixing, and horizontal transport, the latter being modeled as a uniform zonal wind. We…
The atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 209458b is undergoing sustained mass loss, believed to be caused by X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) irradiation from its star. The majority of this flux is not directly observable due to interstellar…
The atmospheres of planets (including Earth) and the outer layers of stars have often been treated in radiative transfer as plane-parallel media, instead of spherical shells, which can lead to inaccuracy, e.g. limb darkening. We give an…
We present updated parameters for the star HD 209458 and its transiting giant planet. The stellar angular diameter $\theta$=0.2254$\pm$0.0017 mas is obtained from the average ratio between the absolute flux observed with the Hubble Space…
We have measured the infrared transit of the extrasolar planet HD209458b using the Spitzer Space Telescope. We observed two primary eclipse events (one partial and one complete transit) using the 24 micron array of the Multiband Imaging…
Hi-resolution spectroscopy (R > 25,000) has recently emerged as one of the leading methods to detect atomic and molecular species in the atmospheres of exoplanets. However, it has so far been lacking in a robust method to extract…
The detections of atomic hydrogen, heavy atoms and ions surrounding the extrasolar giant planet (EGP) HD209458b constrain the composition, temperature and density profiles in its upper atmosphere. Thus the observations provide guidance for…
We present the first detection of molecular hydrogen (H_2) UV absorption profiles on the line of sight to the LMC. The star LH 10:3120 in the LMC was measured with the ORFEUS telescope and the Tuebingen echelle spectrograph during the space…
Most observed exoplanets have high equilibrium temperatures. Understanding the chemistry of their atmospheres and interpreting their observations requires the use of chemical kinetic models including photochemistry. The thermal dependence…
Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous, type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar…
An important source of opacity in exoplanet atmospheres at short visible and near-UV wavelengths is Rayleigh scattering of light on molecules. It is accompanied by a related, albeit weaker process -- Raman scattering. We analyze the…
We explore the infrared spectrum of a three-dimensional dynamical model of planet HD209458b as a function of orbital phase. The dynamical model predicts day-side atmospheric pressure-temperature profiles that are much more isothermal at…
Water is predicted to be among, if not the most abundant molecular species after hydrogen in the atmospheres of close-in extrasolar giant planets (hot-Jupiters) Several attempts have been made to detect water on an exoplanet, but have…