HAT-P-12b 2016-2017 light curve

DOI

Two independent investigations of the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter HAT-P-12b by two different groups resulted in discrepant solutions. Using broad-band photometry from the ground, one study found a flat and featureless transmission spectrum which was interpreted as a gray absorption by dense cloud coverage. The second study made use of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and found Rayleigh scattering at optical wavelengths caused by haze. The main purpose of this work is to find the source of this inconsistency and provide feedback to prevent similar discrepancies in future analyses of other exoplanetary atmospheres. We studied the observed discrepancy via two methods. With further broad-band observations in the optical wavelength regions, we strengthened the previous measurements in precision and with a homogeneous reanalysis of the published data, we managed to assess the systematic errors and the independent analyses of the two different groups. Repeating the analysis steps of both works, we found that deviating values for the orbital parameters are the reason for the aforementioned discrepancy. Our work showed a degeneracy of the planetary spectral slope with these parameters. In a homogeneous reanalysis of all data, the two literature data sets and the new observations converge to a consistent transmission spectrum, showing a low-amplitude spectral slope and a tentative detection of potassium absorption.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.36200142
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/620/A142
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/620/A142
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/620/A142
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/620/A142
Provenance
Creator Alexoudi X.; Mallonn M.; von Essen C.; Turner J.D.; Keles E.,Southworth J.; Mancini L.; Ciceri S.; Granzer T.; Denker C.; Dineva E.,Strassmeier K.G.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2018
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Solar System Astronomy; Stellar Astronomy