Tsiaras, A;
Waldmann, IP;
Zingales, T;
Rocchetto, M;
Morello, G;
Damiano, M;
Karpouzas, K;
... Yurchenko, SN; + view all
(2018)
A Population Study of Gaseous Exoplanets.
The Astronomical Journal
, 155
(4)
10.3847/1538-3881/aaaf75.
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Abstract
We present here the analysis of 30 gaseous extrasolar planets, with temperatures between 600 and 2400 K and radii between 0.35 and 1.9 R Jup. The quality of the HST/WFC3 spatially scanned data combined with our specialized analysis tools allow us to study the largest and most self-consistent sample of exoplanetary transmission spectra to date and examine the collective behavior of warm and hot gaseous planets rather than isolated case studies. We define a new metric, the Atmospheric Detectability Index (ADI) to evaluate the statistical significance of an atmospheric detection and find statistically significant atmospheres in around 16 planets out of the 30 analyzed. For most of the Jupiters in our sample, we find the detectability of their atmospheres to be dependent on the planetary radius but not on the planetary mass. This indicates that planetary gravity plays a secondary role in the state of gaseous planetary atmospheres. We detect the presence of water vapour in all of the statistically detectable atmospheres, and we cannot rule out its presence in the atmospheres of the others. In addition, TiO and/or VO signatures are detected with 4σ confidence in WASP-76 b, and they are most likely present in WASP-121 b. We find no correlation between expected signal-to-noise and atmospheric detectability for most targets. This has important implications for future large-scale surveys.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A Population Study of Gaseous Exoplanets |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3847/1538-3881/aaaf75 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aaaf75 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Astronomy & Astrophysics, methods: data analysis, methods: statistical, planets and satellites: atmospheres, SUPER-EARTH EXOPLANET, COLLISION-INDUCED ABSORPTION, TRANSITING HOT JUPITERS, EXTRASOLAR PLANET, TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM, HD 209458B, GJ 1214B, EMISSION-SPECTRUM, WATER-ABSORPTION, SOLAR WATER |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1554571 |
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