KELT-11 b: Abundances of water and constraints on carbon-bearing molecules from the Hubble transmission spectrum

TL;DR

This study analyzes the transmission spectrum of exoplanet KELT-11 b using Hubble data, detecting water vapor and potential carbon-bearing molecules, and discusses the challenges in constraining their abundances due to weak spectral signatures.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive retrieval analysis of KELT-11 b's atmosphere, highlighting the detection of water vapor and CO2, and explores the degeneracies and challenges in atmospheric composition retrievals.

Findings

Water vapor is present in KELT-11 b's atmosphere.

CO2 is systematically detected when included in models.

Weak spectral signatures make constraining molecule abundances challenging.

Abstract

In the past decade, the analysis of exoplanet atmospheric spectra has revealed the presence of water vapour in almost all the planets observed, with the exception of a fraction of overcast planets. Indeed, water vapour presents a large absorption signature in the wavelength coverage of the Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which is the main space-based observatory for atmospheric studies of exoplanets, making its detection very robust. However, while carbon-bearing species such as methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are also predicted from current chemical models, their direct detection and abundance characterisation has remained a challenge. Here we analyse the transmission spectrum of the puffy, clear hot-Jupiter KELT-11 b from the HST WFC3 camera. We find that the spectrum is consistent with the presence of water vapor and an additional absorption at longer wavelengths than 1.5um, which could well be explained by a mix of carbon bearing molecules. CO2, when included is systematically detected. One of the main difficulties to constrain the abundance of those molecules is their weak signatures across the HST WFC3 wavelength coverage, particularly when compared to those of water. Through a comprehensive retrieval analysis, we attempt to explain the main degeneracies present in this dataset and explore some of the recurrent challenges that are occurring in retrieval studies (e.g: the impact of model selection, the use of free vs self-consistent chemistry and the combination of instrument observations). Our results make this planet an exceptional example of chemical laboratory where to test current physical and chemical models of hot-Jupiters' atmospheres.