Polarimetry of Hot Inflated Jupiters Reveals Their Neptune-like Blue Appearance

Details Polarimetry of Hot Inflated Jupiters Reveals Their Neptune-like Blue Appearance Polarimetry of Hot Inflated Jupiters Reveals Their Neptune-like Blue Appearance

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.1407b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #14.07

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Polarimetry is a powerful technique for detecting directly exoplanetary atmospheres and probing their geometry, chemistry, and thermodynamics. The light scattered in the planetary atmosphere is linearly polarized perpendicular to the scattering plane. In general, when the planet revolves around the parent star, the scattering angle changes and the Stokes parameters vary. Therefore, the observed polarization variability exhibits the orbital period of the planet and reveal the inclination, eccentricity, and orientation of the orbit as well as the nature of scattering particles in the planetary atmosphere. Recently, we have started a polarimetric survey of nearby planetary systems with hot Jupiters closely orbiting their host stars.
Here we will present first polarimetric detection of Upsilon And b which identifies this planet to have low density (0.36 g/cm3) and relatively high average geometrical albedo (0.35) with the maximum in the blue. Together with HD189733b and Kepler-7b, these constitute a small group of inflated and highly reflective hot Jupiters, with albedo defined by Rayleigh scattering on, most probably, condensates in high altitude haze or clouds. The scattering results in the blue shine similar to Neptune. Some other planet parameters determined from polarimetry agree well with those which could be previously evaluated from spectroscopy.
We will also present upper limits on polarimetric detections of HD209458b, 51 Peg b, and Tau Boo b.
Spurious polarization effects, e.g. due to starspots or limb polarization, will be evaluated.

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