Investigation of the upper atmosphere in ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b with high-resolution spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution spectroscopy to detect sodium absorption lines in the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b, revealing a thermosphere with temperatures significantly higher than the planet's equilibrium temperature.

Contribution

It provides new high-resolution spectroscopic measurements of Na lines in WASP-76 b, indicating the presence of a thermosphere with detailed temperature estimates.

Findings

Detection of strong Na D absorption lines with specific line contrasts and widths.

Derived atmospheric temperatures of 3700 K and 4200 K suggest a thermosphere.

Na D lines are shallower and broader than in previous observations.

Abstract

Alkali metal lines are one of the most important key opacity sources for understanding exoplanetary atmospheres because the Na I resonance doublets are thought to be the cause of low albedo, as the alkali metal's wide line wings absorb almost all of the incoming stellar irradiation. High-resolution transmission spectroscopy of Na absorption lines can be used to investigate the temperature of the thermosphere of hot Jupiters, which is increased by stellar X-ray and EUV irradiation. We applied high-resolution transmission spectroscopy to the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b with the High Dispersion Spectrograph (HDS) on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope. We report the detection of strong Na D excess absorption with line contrasts of 0.42 $\pm$ 0.03 % (D1 at 5895.92 \r{A}) and 0.38 $\pm$ 0.04 % (D2 at 5889.95 \r{A}), FWHMs of 1.63 $\pm$ 0.13 \r{A} (D1) and 1.87 $\pm$ 0.22 \r{A} (D2), and EWs of (7.29 $\pm$ 1.43) $\times$ 10$^{-3}$ \r{A} (D1) and (7.56 $\pm$ 2.38) $\times$ 10$^{-3}$ \r{A} (D2). These results show that the Na D absorption lines are shallower and broader than those in previous work, whereas the absorption signals over the same passband are consistent with those in previous work. We derive the best-fitted isothermal temperature of 3700 K (without rotation) and 4200 K (with rotation). These results suggest the possibility of the existence of a thermosphere because the derived atmospheric temperature is higher than the equilibrium temperature ($\sim$ 2160 K).