Bibcode
Birkby, Jayne; Alonso, R.; Brogi, Matteo; Charbonneau, David; Fortney, Jonathan; Hoyer, S.; Johnson, John Asher; de Kok, Remco; Lopez-Morales, Mercedes; Montet, Ben; Snellen, Ignas
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #3, #401.04. BAAS volume 47 #6, November 2015.
Advertised on:
12
2015
Citations
0
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Description
High-resolution spectroscopy (R>25,000) is a robust and powerful tool
in the near-infrared characterization of exoplanet atmospheres. It has
unambiguously revealed the presence of carbon monoxide and water in
several hot Jupiters, measured the rotation rate of beta Pic b, and
suggested the presence of fast day-to-night winds in one atmosphere. The
method is applicable to transiting, non-transiting, and directly-imaged
planets. It works by resolving broad molecular bands in the planetary
spectrum into a dense, unique forest of individual lines and tracing
them directly by their Doppler shift, while the star and tellurics
remain essentially stationary. I will focus on two ongoing efforts to
expand this technique. First, I will present new results on 51 Peg b
revealing its infrared atmospheric compositional properties, then I will
discuss an ongoing optical HARPS-N/TNG campaign (due mid October 2015)
to obtain a detailed albedo spectrum of 51 Peg b at 387-691 nm in bins
of 50nm. This spectrum would provide strong constraints on the
previously claimed high albedo and potentially cloudy nature of this
planet. Second, I will discuss preliminary results from Keck/NIRSPAO
observations (due late September 2015) of LHS 6343 C, a 1000 K
transiting brown dwarf with an M-dwarf host star. The high-resolution
method converts this system into an eclipsing, double-lined
spectroscopic binary, thus allowing dynamical mass and radius estimates
of the components, free from astrophysical assumptions. Alongside
probing the atmospheric composition of the brown dwarf, these data would
provide the first model-independent study of the bulk properties of an
old brown dwarf, with masses accurate to <5%, placing a crucial
constraint on brown dwarf evolution models.