The Wesleyan Hobby-Eberly High-Resolution Exoplanetary Atmospheric Transmission Spectroscopy Survey: Latest Results
Abstract
The Wesleyan Hobby-Eberly High-Resolution Exoplanetary Atmospheric Transmission Spectroscopy Survey (W[HE]2ATS2) has used the 9.2m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to make observations of the transmission spectra of hot Jupiter atmospheres at high spectral resolution ( 60,000). This program has made the first ground-based detection of neutral sodium in an exoplanetary atmosphere (Redfield et al. 2008) and the first detection of exoplanetary Hα (Jensen et al. 2012). A primary goal of exoplanet characterization science is to press toward smaller, Earth-like atmospheres. Though such Earth-like atmospheres are largely beyond the reach of current instrumentation, the W[HE]2ATS2 program has obtained data on a hot Neptune-class planet and a highly irradiated hot Jupiter. The purpose of studying a hot Neptune is to explore a planet with a lower surface gravity and possibly a different atmospheric molecular weight and scale height. The goal of observing the irradiated hot Jupiter is to explore the effects of star-planet interactions on exoplanetary atmospheres. Though such a planet is not a precise analogy to Super-Earths or Earth-like planets, there is a great deal of interest in planets around relatively active M dwarf stars, where the habitable zone is much closer to the star and the star-planet interaction may have a great effect on the planet’s atmosphere. Here we present our initial results for our newest data, where we search for resonance absorption lines of alkali metals such as sodium and potassium, and nonthermally excited material such as n=2 hydrogen detected through Hα absorption. We also discuss directions for future work with the HET and the W[HE]2ATS2 program. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation through an Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grant (AST-0903573). The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221
- Pub Date:
- January 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AAS...22134324J