The KPF SURFS-UP Survey I: Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-76 b

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Householder, Aaron, Dai, Fei, Kesseli, Aurora, Howard, Andrew W., Halverson, Samuel, Fulton, Benjamin J., Zhang, Yapeng, Polanski, Alex S., Inglis, Julie, Tusay, Nick, Bello-Arufe, Aaron, Knutson, Heather A., Baker, Ashley D., Burdge, Kevin B., Edelstein, Jerry, Giacalone, Steven, Gibson, Steven R., Gilbert, Gregory J., Handley, Luke B., Isaacson, Howard, Laher, Russ R., Petigura, Erik A., Rider, Kodi, Roy, Arpita, Rubenzahl, Ryan A., Smith, Chris, Vanderburg, Andrew, Walawender, Josh, Weiss, Lauren M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Householder, Aaron
Dai, Fei
Kesseli, Aurora
Howard, Andrew W.
Halverson, Samuel
Fulton, Benjamin J.
Zhang, Yapeng
Polanski, Alex S.
Inglis, Julie
Tusay, Nick
Bello-Arufe, Aaron
Knutson, Heather A.
Baker, Ashley D.
Burdge, Kevin B.
Edelstein, Jerry
Giacalone, Steven
Gibson, Steven R.
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Handley, Luke B.
Isaacson, Howard
Laher, Russ R.
Petigura, Erik A.
Rider, Kodi
Roy, Arpita
Rubenzahl, Ryan A.
Smith, Chris
Vanderburg, Andrew
Walawender, Josh
Weiss, Lauren M.
author_facet Householder, Aaron
Dai, Fei
Kesseli, Aurora
Howard, Andrew W.
Halverson, Samuel
Fulton, Benjamin J.
Zhang, Yapeng
Polanski, Alex S.
Inglis, Julie
Tusay, Nick
Bello-Arufe, Aaron
Knutson, Heather A.
Baker, Ashley D.
Burdge, Kevin B.
Edelstein, Jerry
Giacalone, Steven
Gibson, Steven R.
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Handley, Luke B.
Isaacson, Howard
Laher, Russ R.
Petigura, Erik A.
Rider, Kodi
Roy, Arpita
Rubenzahl, Ryan A.
Smith, Chris
Vanderburg, Andrew
Walawender, Josh
Weiss, Lauren M.
contents We introduce the KPF SURFS-UP (Spectroscopy of the Upper-atmospheres and ReFractory Species in Ultra-hot Planets) Survey, a high-resolution survey to investigate the atmospheric composition and dynamics of a sample of ultra-hot Jupiters with the Keck Planet Finder (KPF). Due to the unique design of KPF, we developed a publicly available pipeline for KPF that performs blaze removal, continuum normalization, order stitching, science spectra combination, telluric correction, and atmospheric detection via cross-correlation. As a first demonstration, we applied this pipeline to a transit of WASP-76 b and achieved some of the highest signal-to-noise detections of refractory species in WASP-76 b to date (e.g., Fe I is detected at a SNR of 14.5). We confirm previous observations of an asymmetry in Fe I absorption, but find no measurable ingress-egress asymmetry in Na I and Ca II. Together, these results suggest variations within different layers of the atmosphere of WASP-76 b: neutral metals such as Fe I trace deeper regions with stronger asymmetries, while Na I and Ca II probe regions higher in the atmosphere where the ingress-egress asymmetries are weaker. These findings provide new insights into the complex atmosphere of WASP-76 b and highlight the power of using KPF for atmospheric characterization. More broadly, the KPF SURFS-UP Survey will observe a large sample of UHJs, using transmission, emission, and phase-resolved spectroscopy to characterize their refractory abundances, upper atmospheres, and 3D dynamics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_14175
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The KPF SURFS-UP Survey I: Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-76 b
Householder, Aaron
Dai, Fei
Kesseli, Aurora
Howard, Andrew W.
Halverson, Samuel
Fulton, Benjamin J.
Zhang, Yapeng
Polanski, Alex S.
Inglis, Julie
Tusay, Nick
Bello-Arufe, Aaron
Knutson, Heather A.
Baker, Ashley D.
Burdge, Kevin B.
Edelstein, Jerry
Giacalone, Steven
Gibson, Steven R.
Gilbert, Gregory J.
Handley, Luke B.
Isaacson, Howard
Laher, Russ R.
Petigura, Erik A.
Rider, Kodi
Roy, Arpita
Rubenzahl, Ryan A.
Smith, Chris
Vanderburg, Andrew
Walawender, Josh
Weiss, Lauren M.
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
We introduce the KPF SURFS-UP (Spectroscopy of the Upper-atmospheres and ReFractory Species in Ultra-hot Planets) Survey, a high-resolution survey to investigate the atmospheric composition and dynamics of a sample of ultra-hot Jupiters with the Keck Planet Finder (KPF). Due to the unique design of KPF, we developed a publicly available pipeline for KPF that performs blaze removal, continuum normalization, order stitching, science spectra combination, telluric correction, and atmospheric detection via cross-correlation. As a first demonstration, we applied this pipeline to a transit of WASP-76 b and achieved some of the highest signal-to-noise detections of refractory species in WASP-76 b to date (e.g., Fe I is detected at a SNR of 14.5). We confirm previous observations of an asymmetry in Fe I absorption, but find no measurable ingress-egress asymmetry in Na I and Ca II. Together, these results suggest variations within different layers of the atmosphere of WASP-76 b: neutral metals such as Fe I trace deeper regions with stronger asymmetries, while Na I and Ca II probe regions higher in the atmosphere where the ingress-egress asymmetries are weaker. These findings provide new insights into the complex atmosphere of WASP-76 b and highlight the power of using KPF for atmospheric characterization. More broadly, the KPF SURFS-UP Survey will observe a large sample of UHJs, using transmission, emission, and phase-resolved spectroscopy to characterize their refractory abundances, upper atmospheres, and 3D dynamics.
title The KPF SURFS-UP Survey I: Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-76 b
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14175