Towards a population of exoplanetary atmospheres

Today, more that 3500 exoplanets have been detected and, despite the significant progress in the field of atmospheric characterisation in the last decade, we still have a limited understanding for a small number of planets. Similarly to the field of exoplanetary detection, atmospheric population studies are the way forward in constraining which is the current condition of planets, how did they form, and how have they evolved. One of the most successful instruments for observing exoplanetary atmospheres is the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. In particular, the use of the spatial scanning technique has given the opportunity for even more efficient observations of the brightest targets, achieving the necessary precision of 10 to 100 ppm to the flux of the star. This thesis describes the main characteristics of the WFC3/IR instrument and the process followed to extract the planetary transmission spectrum from time series of spatially scanned infrared spectra. Subsequently, I focus on the development of an automatic pipeline that enabled the analysis of the largest population of exoplanetary atmospheres, with 30 planets. This approach is vital for data processing in the future, as more dedicated instruments will provide a large number of observations. In addition, I describe the use of the above software to extract the transmission spectrum of the hot super-Earth 55 Cancri e, which suggests the existence of a light-weighted atmosphere around this planet. Finally, Wayne, a simulator focused on reproducing the above observations, is presented. The parallel development of both the data analysis and simulation software ensured the validity of the different steps in the data analysis process, especially when coupling between different kinds of instrumental systematics was present

A new approach to analysing HST spatial scans: the transmission spectrum of HD 209458 b

The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is currently one of the most widely used instruments for observing exoplanetary atmospheres, especially with the use of the spatial scanning technique. An increasing number of exoplanets have been studied using this technique as it enables the observation of bright targets without saturating the sensitive detectors. In this work we present a new pipeline for analyzing the data obtained with the spatial scanning technique, starting from the raw data provided by the instrument. In addition to commonly used correction techniques, we take into account the geometric distortions of the instrument, whose impact may become important when combined to the scanning process. Our approach can improve the photometric precision for existing data and also push further the limits of the spatial scanning technique, as it allows the analysis of even longer spatial scans. As an application of our method and pipeline, we present the results from a reanalysis of the spatially scanned transit spectrum of HD 209458 b. We calculate the transit depth per wavelength channel with an average relative uncertainty of 40 ppm. We interpret the final spectrum with T-Rex, our fully Bayesian spectral retrieval code, which confirms the presence of water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere of HD 209458 b. The narrow wavelength range limits our ability to disentangle the degeneracies between the fitted atmospheric parameters. Additional data over a broader spectral range are needed to address this issue.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap

Integrating Light Curve and Atmospheric Modeling of Transiting Exoplanets

Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed transmission/emission spectrum. Over the past decade, our understanding of remote worlds in our galaxy has flourished thanks to the use of increasingly sophisticated spectral retrieval techniques and the collective effort of the community working on exoplanet atmospheric models. A new generation of instruments in space and from the ground is expected to deliver higher quality data in the next decade; it is therefore paramount to upgrade current models and improve their reliability, their completeness, and the numerical speed with which they can be run. In this paper, we address the issue of reliability of the results provided by retrieval models in the presence of systematics of unknown origin. More specifically, we demonstrate that if we fit directly individual light curves at different wavelengths (L-retrieval), instead of fitting transit or eclipse depths, as it is currently done (S-retrieval), the said methodology is more sensitive against astrophysical and instrumental noise. This new approach is tested, in particular, when discrepant simulated observations from Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 and Spitzer/IRAC are combined. We find that while S-retrievals converge to an incorrect solution without any warning, L-retrievals are able to flag potential discrepancies between the data sets

Near-IR Transmission Spectrum of HAT-P-32b using HST/WFC3

We report here the analysis of the near-infrared transit spectrum of the hot Jupiter HAT-P-32b, which was recorded with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on board the Hubble Space Telescope. HAT-P-32b is one of the most inflated exoplanets discovered, making it an excellent candidate for transit spectroscopic measurements. To obtain the transit spectrum, we have adopted different analysis methods, both parametric and non-parametric (Independent Component Analysis, ICA), and compared the results. The final spectra are all consistent within 0.5σ. The uncertainties obtained with ICA are larger than those obtained with the parametric method by a factor of ∼1.6–1.8. This difference is the tradeoff for higher objectivity due to the lack of any assumption about the instrument systematics compared to the parametric approach. The ICA error bars are therefore worst-case estimates. To interpret the spectrum of HAT-P-32b we used -REx, our fully Bayesian spectral retrieval code. As for other hot Jupiters, the results are consistent with the presence of water vapor (log H O 3.45 2 1.65 1.83 = - - + ), clouds (top pressure between 5.16 and 1.73 bar). Spectroscopic data over a broader wavelength range are needed to de-correlate the mixing ratio of water vapor from clouds and identify other possible molecular species in the atmosphere of HAT-P-32b

Sensitivity of the N. AEGEAN SEA ecosystem to Black Sea Water inputs

The effect of Black Sea Water (BSW) inputs on the North Aegean Sea productivity and food web dynamics was investigated, by means of sensitivity simulations, investigating the effect of the inflowing BSW, in terms of inorganic nutrients and dissolved organic matter. The model used has been successfully applied in the area in the past and extensively presented. Considering the importance of the microbial loop in the ecosystem functioning, the role of the dissolved organics and in order to achieve a more realistic representation of the Dissolved Organic Matter pool, the bacteria sub-model was appropriately revised. The importance of the microbial loop is highlighted by the carbon fluxes where almost 50% of carbon is channelled within it. The impact of dissolved organic matter (DOM) (in the inflowing to the Aegean Sea, BSW) appears to be stronger than the impact of dissolved inorganic nutrients, showing a more extended effect over the N Aegean. Bacterial production and biomass is more strongly affected in the simulations by modified DOM, unlike phytoplankton biomass and production, which are more dependent on the inflowing nutrients and particularly phosphorus (inorganic and dissolved organic). In the phytoplankton composition, the dinoflagellates appear to be mostly affected, being favoured by higher nutrient availability at the expense of all other groups, particularly picoplankton, indicating a shift to a more classical food chain

Detection of an atmosphere around the super-Earth 55 Cancri e

We report the analysis of two new spectroscopic observations of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e, in the near infrared, obtained with the WFC3 camera onboard the HST. 55 Cancri e orbits so close to its parent star, that temperatures much higher than 2000 K are expected on its surface. Given the brightness of 55 Cancri, the observations were obtained in scanning mode, adopting a very long scanning length and a very high scanning speed. We use our specialized pipeline to take into account systematics introduced by these observational parameters when coupled with the geometrical distortions of the instrument. We measure the transit depth per wavelength channel with an average relative uncertainty of 22 ppm per visit and find modulations that depart from a straight line model with a 6$\sigma$ confidence level. These results suggest that 55 Cancri e is surrounded by an atmosphere, which is probably hydrogen-rich. Our fully Bayesian spectral retrieval code, T-REx, has identified HCN to be the most likely molecular candidate able to explain the features at 1.42 and 1.54 $\mu$m. While additional spectroscopic observations in a broader wavelength range in the infrared will be needed to confirm the HCN detection, we discuss here the implications of such result. Our chemical model, developed with combustion specialists, indicates that relatively high mixing ratios of HCN may be caused by a high C/O ratio. This result suggests this super-Earth is a carbon-rich environment even more exotic than previously thought.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap

A population study of gaseous exoplanets

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 $R_\mathrm{Jup}$. 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 around 16 planets out of the 30 analysed. 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 4$\sigma$ 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.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, published in A

Disentangling atmospheric compositions of K2-18 b with next generation facilities

Recent analysis of the planet K2-18 b has shown the presence of water vapour in its atmosphere. While the H_{2}O detection is significant, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFC3 spectrum suggests three possible solutions of very different nature which can equally match the data. The three solutions are a primary cloudy atmosphere with traces of water vapour (cloudy sub-Neptune), a secondary atmosphere with a substantial amount (up to 50% Volume Mixing Ratio) of H_{2}O (icy/water world) and/or an undetectable gas such as N2 (super-Earth). Additionally, the atmospheric pressure and the possible presence of a liquid/solid surface cannot be investigated with currently available observations. In this paper we used the best fit parameters from Tsiaras et al. (Nat. Astron. 3, 1086, 2019) to build James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Ariel simulations of the three scenarios. We have investigated 18 retrieval cases, which encompass the three scenarios and different observational strategies with the two observatories. Retrieval results show that twenty combined transits should be enough for the Ariel mission to disentangle the three scenarios, while JWST would require only two transits if combining NIRISS and NIRSpec data. This makes K2-18 b an ideal target for atmospheric follow-ups by both facilities and highlights the capabilities of the next generation of space-based infrared observatories to provide a complete picture of low mass planets