The GTC exoplanet transit spectroscopy survey. VI. Detection of sodium in WASP-52b's cloudy atmosphere

Chen, G.; Pallé, E.; Nortmann, L.; Murgas, F.; Parviainen, H.; Nowak, G.
Bibliographical reference

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 600, id.L11, 6 pp.

Advertised on:
4
2017
Number of authors
6
IAC number of authors
6
Citations
45
Refereed citations
42
Description
We report the first detection of sodium absorption in the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter WASP-52b. We observed one transit of WASP-52b with the low-resolution Optical System for Imaging and low-Intermediate-Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy (OSIRIS) at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The resulting transmission spectrum, covering the wavelength range from 522 nm to 903 nm, is flat and featureless, except for the significant narrow absorption signature at the sodium doublet, which can be explained by an atmosphere in solar composition with clouds at 1 mbar. A cloud-free atmosphere is stringently ruled out. By assessing the absorption depths of sodium in various bin widths, we find that temperature increases towards lower atmospheric pressure levels, with a positive temperature gradient of 0.88 ± 0.65 K km-1, possibly indicative of upper atmospheric heating and a temperature inversion. The light curves are only vailable at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (http://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/600/L11
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