Evidence of Water Vapor in the Atmosphere of a Metal-Rich Hot Saturn with High-Resolution Transmission Spectroscopy
Abstract
Transmission spectroscopy presents one of the most successful approaches for investigating the atmospheres of exoplanets. We analyzed the near-infrared high-resolution transmission spectrum of a hot Saturn, HD 149026 b, taken using CARMENES spectrograph ($\mathcal{R}\sim80,400$). We found evidence of H$_2$O at an S/N of $\sim$4.8. We also performed grid search using a Bayesian framework and constrained the orbital velocity $K_\mathrm{p}$ and rest velocity $V_{\mathrm{rest}}$ to $158.17^{+8.31}_{-7.90}$ $\mathrm{km\ s}^{-1}$ and $2.57^{+0.54}_{-0.57}$ $\mathrm{km\ s}^{-1}$, respectively. Whilst the retrieved $K_\mathrm{p}$ value is consistent with theoretical prediction, the retrieved $V_{\mathrm{rest}}$ value is highly red-shifted ($>$3-$\sigma$). This might be an indication of either anomalous atmospheric dynamics at play or an orbit with non-zero eccentricity. Additionally, we searched for HCN but no successful detection has been made possibly due to the relatively low S/N dataset. The detection of H$_2$O and subsequent abundance retrieval, coupled with analysis of other species such as CO at the $K$-band, for example, might help us to get some information about the atmospheric C/O ratio and metallicity, which in turn could give us some insight into the planet formation scenario.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- July 2024
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.2407.01266
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2407.01266
- Bibcode:
- 2024arXiv240701266R
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 22 pages, 15 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication at AJ