Observations of scattered light from exoplanet atmospheres

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Morris, Brett M., Heng, Kevin, Kitzmann, Daniel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910445619642368
author Morris, Brett M.
Heng, Kevin
Kitzmann, Daniel
author_facet Morris, Brett M.
Heng, Kevin
Kitzmann, Daniel
contents Optical phase curves of hot Jupiters can reveal global scattering properties. We implement a Bayesian inference framework for optical phase curves with flux contributions from: reflected light from a potentially inhomogeneous atmosphere, thermal emission, ellipsoidal variations, Doppler beaming, and stellar rotation via a Gaussian process in the time domain. We probe for atmospheric homogeneity and time-variability using the reflected light inferences for highly precise Kepler light curves of five hot Jupiters. We also investigate the scattering properties which constrain the most likely condensates in the inhomogeneous atmospheres. Cross validation prefers inhomogeneous albedo distributions for Kepler-7 b and Kepler-41 b, and a weak preference for inhomogeneity for KOI-13 b. None of the five planets exhibit significant variations in geometric albedo on one-year timescales, in agreement with theoretical expectations. We show that analytic reflected light phase curves with isotropic multiple scattering are in excellent agreement with full Rayleigh multiple scattering calculations, allowing for accelerated and analytic inference. In a case study of Kepler-41 b, we identify perovskite, forsterite, and enstatite as possible scattering species consistent with the reflected light phase curves, with condensate particle radii in the range 0.01-0.1 micron.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_13635
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Observations of scattered light from exoplanet atmospheres
Morris, Brett M.
Heng, Kevin
Kitzmann, Daniel
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Optical phase curves of hot Jupiters can reveal global scattering properties. We implement a Bayesian inference framework for optical phase curves with flux contributions from: reflected light from a potentially inhomogeneous atmosphere, thermal emission, ellipsoidal variations, Doppler beaming, and stellar rotation via a Gaussian process in the time domain. We probe for atmospheric homogeneity and time-variability using the reflected light inferences for highly precise Kepler light curves of five hot Jupiters. We also investigate the scattering properties which constrain the most likely condensates in the inhomogeneous atmospheres. Cross validation prefers inhomogeneous albedo distributions for Kepler-7 b and Kepler-41 b, and a weak preference for inhomogeneity for KOI-13 b. None of the five planets exhibit significant variations in geometric albedo on one-year timescales, in agreement with theoretical expectations. We show that analytic reflected light phase curves with isotropic multiple scattering are in excellent agreement with full Rayleigh multiple scattering calculations, allowing for accelerated and analytic inference. In a case study of Kepler-41 b, we identify perovskite, forsterite, and enstatite as possible scattering species consistent with the reflected light phase curves, with condensate particle radii in the range 0.01-0.1 micron.
title Observations of scattered light from exoplanet atmospheres
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.13635