An exploration of model degeneracies with a unified phase curve retrieval analysis: The light and dark sides of WASP-43 b

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, unified phase curve retrieval model for exoplanet atmospheres, applied to WASP-43 b, revealing potential thermal inversions and metal-rich atmospheres, highlighting the importance of advanced analysis techniques.

Contribution

The paper presents a new computationally efficient phase curve model enabling comprehensive atmospheric retrievals from full orbit data.

Findings

Multiple atmospheric interpretations are possible for WASP-43 b.

The model suggests the presence of thermal inversions and metal-rich atmospheres.

Results depend on data reduction choices, especially Spitzer data.

Abstract

The analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres often relies upon the observation of transit or eclipse events. While very powerful, these snapshots provide mainly 1-dimensional information on the planet structure and do not easily allow precise latitude-longitude characterisations. The phase curve technique, which consists of measuring the planet emission throughout its entire orbit, can break this limitation and provide useful 2-dimensional thermal and chemical constraints on the atmosphere. As of today however, computing performances have limited our ability to perform unified retrieval studies on the full set of observed spectra from phase curve observations at the same time. Here, we present a new phase curve model that enables fast, unified retrieval capabilities. We apply our technique to the combined phase curve data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes of the hot-Jupiter WASP-43 b. We tested different scenarios and discussed the dependence of our solution to different assumptions in the model. Our more comprehensive approach suggests that multiple interpretation of this dataset are possible but our more complex model is consistent with the presence of thermal inversions and a metal rich atmosphere, contrasting with previous data analyses, although this likely depends on the Spitzer data reduction. The detailed constraints extracted here demonstrate the importance of developing and understanding advanced phase curve techniques, which we believe will unlock access to a richer picture of exoplanet atmospheres.