Primary transit of the planet HD189733b at 3.6 and 5.8 microns

TL;DR

This study measures the transit depths of exoplanet HD 189733b at 3.6 and 5.8 microns using Spitzer, accounting for stellar activity effects, and finds results consistent with atmospheric water vapor presence.

Contribution

First simultaneous measurement of HD 189733b's transit depths at 3.6 and 5.8 microns with corrections for stellar activity effects.

Findings

Transit depths are approximately 2.36% at 3.6 microns and 2.44% at 5.8 microns.

Limb darkening and star spots cause minimal differential effects between the bands.

Results support the presence of water vapor in the planet's upper atmosphere.

Abstract

The hot Jupiter HD 189733b was observed during its primary transit using the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope. The transit depths were measured simultaneously at 3.6 and 5.8 microns. Our analysis yields values of 2.356 +- 0.019 % and 2.436 +- 0.020$ % at 3.6 and 5.8 microns respectively, for a uniform source. We estimated the contribution of the limb-darkening and star-spot effects on the final results. We concluded that although the limb darkening increases by ~0.02-0.03 % the transit depths, and the differential effects between the two IRAC bands is even smaller, 0.01 %. Furthermore, the host star is known to be an active spotted K star with observed photometric modulation. If we adopt an extreme model of 20 % coverage with spots 1000K cooler of the star surface, it will make the observed transits shallower by 0.19 and 0.18 %. The difference between the two bands will be only of 0.01 %, in the opposite direction to the limb darkening correction. If the transit depth is affected by limb darkening and spots, the differential effects between the 3.6 and 5.8 microns bands are very small. The differential transit depths at 3.6 and 5.8 microns and the recent one published by Knutson et al.(2007) at 8 microns are in agreement with the presence of water vapour in the upper atmosphere of the planet. This is the companion paper to Tinetti et al. (2007b), where the detailed atmosphere models are presented.