No Thermal Inversion and a Solar Water Abundance for the Hot Jupiter HD209458b from HST WFC3 Emission Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses high-precision HST WFC3 spectroscopy to analyze the atmosphere of hot Jupiter HD209458b, finding no thermal inversion and measuring water abundance, challenging previous claims based on broadband photometry.

Contribution

It provides the first spectroscopic evidence against thermal inversion in HD209458b and introduces a new chemical retrieval method for atmospheric composition analysis.

Findings

No thermal inversion detected, temperature decreases with pressure.

Water is observed in absorption at 6.2 sigma confidence.

Plausible solar-like metallicity and C/O ratios less than unity.

Abstract

The nature of the vertical thermal structure of hot Jupiter atmospheres is one of the key questions raised by the characterization of transiting exoplanets over the last decade. There have been claims that many hot Jupiter's exhibit vertical profiles with increasing temperature with decreasing pressure in the infrared photosphere that leads to the reversal of molecular absorption bands into emission features (an inversion). However, these claims have been based on broadband photometry rather than the unambiguous identification of emission features with spectroscopy, and the chemical species that could cause the thermal inversions by absorbing stellar irradiation at high altitudes have not been identified despite extensive theoretical and observational effort. Here we present high precision HST WFC3 observations of the dayside emission spectrum of the hot Jupiter HD209458b; the first exoplanet suggested to have a thermal inversion. Our observations resolve a water band in absorption at 6.2 sigma confidence. When combined with Spitzer photometry the data are indicative of a monotonically decreasing temperature with pressure over the range 1-0.001 bar at 7.7 sigma confidence. We test the robustness of our results by exploring a variety of model assumptions including the temperature profile parameterization, presence of a cloud, and choice of Spitzer data reduction. We also introduce a new analysis method, "chemical retrieval-on-retrieval", to determine the elemental abundances from the spectrally retrieved mixing ratios with thermochemical self-consistency and find plausible abundances consistent with solar metallicity (0.06 - 10 x solar) and carbon-to-oxygen ratios less than unity. This work suggests that high-precision spectrophotometric results are required to robustly infer thermal structures and compositions of extra-solar planet atmospheres.