17 research outputs found
The Dark World:A Tale of WASP-43b in Reflected Light with HST WFC3/UVIS
Optical, reflected light eclipse observations provide a direct probe of the
exoplanet scattering properties, such as from aerosols. We present here the
photometric, reflected light observations of WASP-43b using the HST WFC3/UVIS
instrument with the F350LP filter (346-822nm) encompassing the entire optical
band. This is the first reflected light, photometric eclipse using UVIS in
scanning mode; as such we further detail our scanning extraction and analysis
pipeline Arctor. Our HST WFC3/UVIS eclipse light curve for WASP-43 b derived a
3-{\sigma} upper limit of 67 ppm on the eclipse depth, which implies that
WASP-43b has a very dark dayside atmosphere. With our atmospheric modeling
campaign, we compared our reflected light constraints with predictions from
global circulation and cloud models, benchmarked with HST and Spitzer
observations of WASP-43b. We infer that we do not detect clouds on the dayside
within the pressure levels probed by HST WFC3/UVIS with the F350LP filter (P >
1 bar). This is consistent with the GCM predictions based on previous WASP-43b
observations. Dayside emission spectroscopy results from WASP-43b with HST and
Spitzer observations are likely to not be significantly affected by
contributions from cloud particles.Comment: 29 pages, 22 figures, accepted to AAS/Ap
Primal-dual stability in continuous linear optimization
Any linear (ordinary or semi-infinite) optimization problem, and also its dual problem, can be classified as either inconsistent or bounded or unbounded, giving rise to nine duality states, three of them being precluded by the weak duality theorem. The remaining six duality states are possible in linear semi-infinite programming whereas two of them are precluded in linear programming as a consequence of the existence theorem and the non-homogeneous Farkas Lemma. This paper characterizes the linear programs and the continuous linear semi-infinite programs whose duality state is preserved by sufficiently small perturbations of all the data. Moreover, it shows that almost all linear programs satisfy this stability property.This research was supported by DGES and FEDER, Grant MTM2005-08572-C03-01 and partially supported by CONACyT of MX.Grant 44003
A new method to correct for host star variability in multiepoch observations of exoplanet transmission spectra
Transmission spectra of exoplanets orbiting active stars suffer from wavelength-dependent effects due to stellar photospheric heterogeneity. WASP-19b, an ultra-hot Jupiter (Teq ∼2100 K), is one such strongly irradiated gas-giant orbiting an active solar-type star. We present optical (520-900 nm) transmission spectra of WASP-19b obtained across eight epochs, using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini-South telescope. We apply our recently developed Gaussian Processes regression based method to model the transit light-curve systematics and extract the transmission spectrum at each epoch. We find that WASP-19b's transmission spectrum is affected by stellar variability at individual epochs. We report an observed anticorrelation between the relative slopes and offsets of the spectra across all epochs. This anticorrelation is consistent with the predictions from the forward transmission models, which account for the effect of unocculted stellar spots and faculae measured previously for WASP-19. We introduce a new method to correct for this stellar variability effect at each epoch by using the observed correlation between the transmission spectral slopes and offsets. We compare our stellar variability corrected GMOS transmission spectrum with previous contradicting MOS measurements for WASP-19b and attempt to reconcile them. We also measure the amplitude and timescale of broad-band stellar variability of WASP-19 from TESS photometry, which we find to be consistent with the effect observed in GMOS spectroscopy and ground-based broad-band photometric long-term monitoring. Our results ultimately caution against combining multiepoch optical transmission spectra of exoplanets orbiting active stars before correcting each epoch for stellar variability
A new method to correct for host star variability in multiepoch observations of exoplanet transmission spectra
Transmission spectra of exoplanets orbiting active stars suffer from wavelength-dependent effects due to stellar photospheric heterogeneity. WASP-19b, an ultra-hot Jupiter (Teq ∼2100 K), is one such strongly irradiated gas-giant orbiting an active solar-type star. We present optical (520-900 nm) transmission spectra of WASP-19b obtained across eight epochs, using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini-South telescope. We apply our recently developed Gaussian Processes regression based method to model the transit light-curve systematics and extract the transmission spectrum at each epoch. We find that WASP-19b's transmission spectrum is affected by stellar variability at individual epochs. We report an observed anticorrelation between the relative slopes and offsets of the spectra across all epochs. This anticorrelation is consistent with the predictions from the forward transmission models, which account for the effect of unocculted stellar spots and faculae measured previously for WASP-19. We introduce a new method to correct for this stellar variability effect at each epoch by using the observed correlation between the transmission spectral slopes and offsets. We compare our stellar variability corrected GMOS transmission spectrum with previous contradicting MOS measurements for WASP-19b and attempt to reconcile them. We also measure the amplitude and timescale of broad-band stellar variability of WASP-19 from TESS photometry, which we find to be consistent with the effect observed in GMOS spectroscopy and ground-based broad-band photometric long-term monitoring. Our results ultimately caution against combining multiepoch optical transmission spectra of exoplanets orbiting active stars before correcting each epoch for stellar variability