Atmospheric composition of WASP-85Ab with ESPRESSO/VLT observations

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution ESPRESSO/VLT transit spectroscopy to analyze the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-85Ab, tentatively detecting specific atomic and molecular signals and assessing the planet's orbital alignment.

Contribution

First high-resolution transmission spectra of WASP-85Ab obtained with ESPRESSO, revealing tentative atmospheric features and the planet's near-aligned orbit.

Findings

Tentative detection of Hα and Ca II absorption in the planetary atmosphere.

Marginal detection of Li I at approximately 4σ level.

Determination of a near-aligned spin-orbit angle of about -16 degrees.

Abstract

Transit spectroscopy is the most frequently used technique to reveal the atmospheric properties of exoplanets, while that at high resolution has the advantage to resolve the small Doppler shift of spectral lines, and the trace signal of the exoplanet atmosphere can be separately extracted. We obtain the transmission spectra of the extrasolar planet WASP-85Ab, a hot Jupiter in a 2.655-day orbit around a G5, V=11.2 mag host star, observed by high-resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO at the Very Large Telescope array for three transits. We present an analysis of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect on WASP-85A, and determine a spin-orbit angle ${\lambda = -16.155^{\circ}}^{+2.916}_{-2.879}$, suggesting that the planet is in an almost aligned orbit. Combining the transmission spectra of three nights, we tentatively detected H$\alpha$ and Ca II absorption with $\gtrapprox 3\sigma$ via direct visual inspection of the transmission spectra with the Center-to-Limb variation and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effects removed, which still remain visible after excluding the cores of these strong lines with a 0.1 A mask. These spectral signals seems likely to origin from the planetary atmosphere, but we can not fully exclude their stellar origins. Via the cross-correlation analysis of a set of atoms and molecules, Li I is marginally detected at $\sim4\sigma$ level, suggesting that Li might be present in the atmosphere of WASP-85Ab.