Assessing the atmospheric chemistry of KELT-20b
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Date
2023-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Recent atmospheric observations of ultra hot Jupiters (UHJs) share common traits, most importantly temperature inversions, in which temperature increases with altitude. Using high resolution spectroscopy from the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)/Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectrographic Instrument (PEPSI), we investigate the atomic and molecular opacity sources that may cause this inversion in KELT-20b, as well as explore its atmospheric chemistry. Recent publications have claimed to detect Fe I, Fe II, Cr I, Si I, and Ni I, however using our data, we were only able to confirm the presence of Fe I with a significance of 17 sigma.
Though we are unable to present a definitive explanation for these differences from literature, our results leave multiple paths to further explore potential atmospheric variability.
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Keywords
Astronomy, Exoplanets, Hot Jupiters