ARES. II. Characterizing the Hot Jupiters WASP-127 b, WASP-79 b, and WASP-62b with the Hubble Space Telescope

Nour Skaf (1, 2) , Michelle Fabienne Bieger (3) , Billy Edwards (1) , Quentin Changeat (1) , Mario Morvan (1) , Flavien Kiefer (4) , Doriann Blain (2) , Tiziano Zingales (5) , Mathilde Poveda (6, 7) , Ahmed Al-Refaie (1) , Robin Baeyens (8) , Amélie Gressier (2, 4, 9) , Gloria Guilluy (10, 11) , Adam Yassin Jaziri (5) , Darius Modirrousta-Galian (12) , Lorenzo Mugnai (13) , William Pluriel (5) , Niall Whiteford (14, 15) , Sam Wright (1) , Kai Hou Yip (1) , Benjamin Charnay (2) , Jérémy Leconte (5) , Pierre Drossart (2) , Angelos Tsiaras (1) , Olivia Venot (6) , Ingo Waldmann (1) , Jean-Philippe Beaulieu (4, 16)

1 Department of Physics and Astronomy [UCL London]
2 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique = Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics
3 EMPS - College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences [Exeter]
4 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
5 ECLIPSE 2020
6 LISA (UMR_7583) - Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques
7 MDLS - Maison de la Simulation
8 Instituut voor Sterrenkunde [Leuven]
9 PLANETO - LATMOS
10 Dipartimento di Fisica [Torino]
11 OATo - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino
12 OAPa - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo
13 Dipartimento di Fisica [Roma La Sapienza]
14 IfA - Institute for Astronomy [Edinburgh]
15 Centre for Exoplanet Science
16 School of Physical Sciences [Hobart]

This paper presents the atmospheric characterization of three large, gaseous planets: WASP-127 b, WASP-79 b, and WASP-62 b. We analyzed spectroscopic data obtained with the G141 grism (1.088-1.68 μm) of the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope using the Iraclis pipeline and the TauREx3 retrieval code, both of which are publicly available. For WASP-127 b, which is the least dense planet discovered so far and is located in the short-period Neptune desert, our retrieval results found strong water absorption corresponding to an abundance of log(H2O) = -2.71 +0.78−1.05 and absorption compatible with an iron hydride abundance of log(FeH) = −5.25+0.88−1.10, with an extended cloudy atmosphere. We also detected water vapor in the atmospheres of WASP-79 b and WASP-62 b, with best-fit models indicating the presence of iron hydride, too. We used the Atmospheric Detectability Index as well as Bayesian log evidence to quantify the strength of the detection and compared our results to the hot Jupiter population study by Tsiaras et al. While all the planets studied here are suitable targets for characterization with upcoming facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Ariel, WASP-127 b is of particular interest due to its low density, and a thorough atmospheric study would develop our understanding of planet formation and migration. * ARES: Ariel Retrieval of Exoplanets School.

Mots clés: Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Exoplanet astronomy (486); Exoplanet atmospheres (487); Astronomy data analysis (1858); Hubble Space Telescope (761)

Domaines: Physique [physics]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Nour Skaf, Michelle Fabienne Bieger, Billy Edwards, Quentin Changeat, Mario Morvan, et al.. ARES. II. Characterizing the Hot Jupiters WASP-127 b, WASP-79 b, and WASP-62b with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Astronomical Journal, 2020, 160 (3), pp.109. ⟨10.3847/1538-3881/ab94a3⟩. ⟨insu-02928912⟩