Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21113410r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #134.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.969
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present the first ground-based detection of optical transmission absorption caused by the atmosphere of a transiting extrasolar planet. We combine multiple in-transit observations taken by the 9.2m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) and compare directly with out-of-transit observations. Without high resolution space-based optical or UV spectrographs, ground-based facilities provide the only opportunity to probe the extrasolar atmospheric signatures in the visible waveband. A significant absorption detection is made in the spectrally resolved NaI doublet. We present measurements and limits of other lines of interest in the optical. A detailed differential stellar limb-darkening model is presented, which is shown to contribute at a low level to the signal of the transmission spectrum. We also discuss an empirical Monte Carlo technique, used to determine the magnitude of systematic errors caused by reduction practices (i.e., continuum definition, telluric subtraction) and by astrophysical properties (i.e., stellar variability, differential limb-darkening). Measurements, and even upper limits, of atmospheric lines should provide important constraints on models of giant exoplanet atmospheres, including for example, cloud cover altitudes, atomic and molecular composition, and temperature profiles.
This work is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01190.01 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555.
Cochran William D.
Endl Michael
Koesterke Lars
Redfield Seth
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