HST PanCET Program: A Complete Near-UV to Infrared Transmission Spectrum for the Hot Jupiter WASP-79b
We present a new optical transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-79b. We observed three transits with the STIS instrument mounted on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), spanning 0.3–1.0 μm. Combining these transits with previous observations, we construct a complete 0.3–5.0 μm transmission spect...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.INTA Repositorio Digital del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.inta.es:20.500.12666/752 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac0e99 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12666/752 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Exoplanet atmospheres Exoplanets atmospheric composition Observational astronomy Hot Jupiters Transmission spectroscopy |
| Sumario: | We present a new optical transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-79b. We observed three transits with the STIS instrument mounted on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), spanning 0.3–1.0 μm. Combining these transits with previous observations, we construct a complete 0.3–5.0 μm transmission spectrum of WASP-79b. Both HST and ground-based observations show decreasing transit depths toward blue wavelengths, contrary to expectations from Rayleigh scattering or hazes. We infer atmospheric and stellar properties from the full near-UV to infrared transmission spectrum of WASP-79b using three independent retrieval codes, all of which yield consistent results. Our retrievals confirm previous detections of H2O (at 4.0σ confidence) while providing moderate evidence of H− bound–free opacity (3.3σ) and strong evidence of stellar contamination from unocculted faculae (4.7σ). The retrieved H2O abundance (∼1%) suggests a superstellar atmospheric metallicity, though stellar or substellar abundances remain consistent with present observations (O/H = 0.3–34× stellar). All three retrieval codes obtain a precise H− abundance constraint: log(${X}_{{{\rm{H}}}^{-}}$) ≈ −8.0 ± 0.7. The potential presence of H− suggests that James Webb Space Telescope observations may be sensitive to ionic chemistry in the atmosphere of WASP-79b. The inferred faculae are ∼500 K hotter than the stellar photosphere, covering ∼15% of the stellar surface. Our analysis underscores the importance of observing UV–optical transmission spectra in order to disentangle the influence of unocculted stellar heterogeneities from planetary transmission spectra. |
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