G. Morello

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

Repeatability and Accuracy of Exoplanet Eclipse Depths Measured with Post-Cryogenic Spitzer

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A NEW LOOK AT SPITZER PRIMARY TRANSIT OBSERVATIONS OF THE EXOPLANET HD 189733b

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

REVISITING SPITZER TRANSIT OBSERVATIONS WITH INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS: NEW RESULTS FOR THE GJ 436 SYSTEM

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A NEW APPROACH TO ANALYZING HST SPATIAL SCANS: THE TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM OF HD 209458 b

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.

Rapid rotators revisited: absolute dimensions of KOI-13

We examine the repeatability, reliability, and accuracy of differential exoplanet eclipse depth measurements made using the InfraRed Array Camera (IRAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope during the post-cryogenic mission. We have re-analyzed an existing 4.5 {\mu}m data set, consisting of 10 observations of the XO-3b system during secondary eclipse, using seven different techniques for removing correlated noise. We find that, on average, for a given technique, the eclipse depth estimate is repeatable from epoch to epoch to within 156 parts per million (ppm). Most techniques derive eclipse depths that do not vary by more than a factor 3 of the photon noise limit. All methods but one accurately assess their own errors: for these methods, the individual measurement uncertainties are comparable to the scatter in eclipse depths over the 10 epoch sample. To assess the accuracy of the techniques as well as to clarify the difference between instrumental and other sources of measurement error, we have also analyzed a simulated data set of 10 visits to XO-3b, for which the eclipse depth is known. We find that three of the methods (BLISS mapping, Pixel Level Decorrelation, and Independent Component Analysis) obtain results that are within three times the photon limit of the true eclipse depth. When averaged over the 10 epoch ensemble, 5 out of 7 techniques come within 60 ppm of the true value. Spitzer exoplanet data, if obtained following current best practices and reduced using methods such as those described here, can measure repeatable and accurate single eclipse depths, with close to photon-limited results.

A population study of gaseous exoplanets

Blind source separation techniques are used to reanalyze two exoplanetary transit light curves of the exoplanet HD 189733b recorded with the IR camera IRAC on board the Spitzer Space Telescope at 3.6 μm during the “cold” era. These observations, together with observations at other IR wavelengths, are crucial to characterize the atmosphere of the planet HD 189733b. Previous analyses of the same data sets reported discrepant results, hence the necessity of the reanalyses. The method we used here is based on the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) statistical technique, which ensures a high degree of objectivity. The use of ICA to detrend single photometric observations in a self-consistent way is novel in the literature. The advantage of our reanalyses over previous work is that we do not have to make any assumptions on the structure of the unknown instrumental systematics. Such “admission of ignorance” may result in larger error bars than reported in the literature, up to a factor 1.6. This is a worthwhile tradeoff for much higher objectivity, necessary for trustworthy claims. Our main results are (1) improved and robust values of orbital and stellar parameters, (2) new measurements of the transit depths at 3.6 μm, (3) consistency between the parameters estimated from the two observations, (4) repeatability of the measurement withinthephotometriclevelof ∼2×10 −4 intheIR,and(5)noevidenceofstellarvariabilityatthesamephotometric

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

We analyzed four Spitzer/IRAC observations at 3.6 and 4.5 µm of the primary transit of the exoplanet GJ436b, by using blind source separation techniques. These observations are important to investigate the atmospheric composition of the planet GJ436b. Previous analyses claimed strong inter-epoch variations of the transit parameters due to stellar variability, casting doubts on the possibility to extract conclusively an atmospheric signal; those analyses also reported discrepant results, hence the necessity of this reanalysis. The method we used has been proposed in Morello et al. (2014) to analyze 3.6 µm transit light-curves of the hot Jupiter HD189733b; it performes an Independent Component Analysis (ICA) on a set of pixel-light-curves, i.e. time series read by individual pixels, from the same photometric observation. Our method only assumes the independence of instrumental and astrophysical signals, and therefore guarantees a higher degree of objectivity compared to parametric detrending techniques published in the literature. The datasets we analyzed in this paper represent a more challenging test compared to the previous ones. Contrary to previous results reported in the literature, our results (1) do not support any detectable inter-epoch variations of orbital and stellar parameters, (2) are photometrically stable at the level ∼10 −4 in the IR, and (3) the transit depth measurements at the two wavelengths are consistent within 1�. We also (4) detect a possible transit duration variation (TDV) of ∼80 s (2 � significance level), that has not been pointed out in the literature, and (5) confirm no transit timing variations (TTVs) &30 s. Subject headings: methods: data analysis - techniques: photometric - planets and satellites: atmospheres - planets and satellites: individual(GJ436b)

A SEA BASS on the Exoplanet HD 209458b

The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is currently one of the most popular 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 analysing 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 209458b. We calculate the transit depth per wavelength channel with an average relative error of 40 ppm. We interpret the final spectrum with T-REx, our line-by-line fully bayesian spectral retrieval code, which confirms the presence of water vapour and investigates the additional presence of NH

Applications of machine-learning algorithms for infrared colour selection of Galactic Wolf–Rayet stars

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