No Arabic abstract
High spectral resolution transmission spectroscopy is a powerful tool to characterize exoplanet atmospheres. Especially for hot Jupiters, this technique is highly relevant, due to their high altitude absorption e.g. from resonant sodium (Na I) and potassium (K I) lines. We resolve the atmospheric K I-absorption on HD189733b with the aim to compare the resolved K I -line and previously obtained high resolution Na I-D-line observations with synthetic transmission spectra. The line profiles suggest atmospheric processes leading to a line broadening of the order of 10 km/s for the Na I-D-lines, and only a few km/s for the K I-line. The investigation hints that either the atmosphere of HD189733b lacks a significant amount of K I or the alkali lines probe different atmospheric regions with different temperature, which could explain the differences we see in the resolved absorption lines.
We present new observations of the transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-6b both from the ground with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph (FORS2) from 0.45-0.83 $mu$m, and space with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) from 0.6-1.0 $mu$m and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 from 1.12-1.65 $mu$m. Archival data from the HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and Spitzer is also reanalysed on a common Gaussian process framework, of which the STIS data show a good overall agreement with the overlapping FORS2 data. We also explore the effects of stellar heterogeneity on our observations and its resulting implications towards determining the atmospheric characteristics of WASP-6b. Independent of our assumptions for the level of stellar heterogeneity we detect Na I, K I and H$_2$O absorption features and constrain the elemental oxygen abundance to a value of [O/H] $simeq -0.9pm0.3$ relative to solar. In contrast, we find that the stellar heterogeneity correction can have significant effects on the retrieved distributions of the [Na/H] and [K/H] abundances, primarily through its degeneracy with the sloping optical opacity of scattering haze species within the atmosphere. Our results also show that despite this presence of haze, WASP-6b remains a favourable object for future atmospheric characterisation with upcoming missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope.
We characterize the K I D1 & D2 lines in order to determine whether they could complement the 850 nm window, containing the Ca II infrared triplet lines and several Zeeman sensitive photospheric lines, that was studied previously. We investigate the effect of partial redistribution on the intensity profiles, their sensitivity to changes in different atmospheric parameters, and the spatial distribution of Zeeman polarization signals employing a realistic magnetohydrodynamic simulation. The results show that these lines form in the upper photosphere at around 500 km and that they are sensitive to the line of sight velocity and magnetic field strength at heights where neither the photospheric lines nor the Ca II infrared lines are. However, at the same time, we found that their sensitivity to the temperature essentially comes from the photosphere. Then, we conclude that the K I lines provide a complement to the lines in the 850 nm window for the determination of atmospheric parameters in the upper photosphere, especially for the line of sight velocity and the magnetic field.
The Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission, currently in Phase A, composed of a multi-slit EUV spectrograph (in three narrow spectral bands centered around 171A, 284A, and 108A) and an EUV context imager (in two narrow passbands around 195A and 304A). MUSE will provide unprecedented spectral and imaging diagnostics of the solar corona at high spatial (<0.5 arcsec), and temporal resolution (down to ~0.5s) thanks to its innovative multi-slit design. By obtaining spectra in 4 bright EUV lines (Fe IX 171A , Fe XV 284A, Fe XIX-Fe XXI 108A) covering a wide range of transition region and coronal temperatures along 37 slits simultaneously, MUSE will for the first time be able to freeze (at a cadence as short as 10 seconds) with a spectroscopic raster the evolution of the dynamic coronal plasma over a wide range of scales: from the spatial scales on which energy is released (~0.5 arcsec) to the large-scale often active-region size (170 arcsec x 170 arcsec) atmospheric response. We use advanced numerical modeling to showcase how MUSE will constrain the properties of the solar atmosphere on the spatio-temporal scales (~0.5 arcsec, ~20 seconds) and large field-of-view on which various state-of-the-art models of the physical processes that drive coronal heating, solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) make distinguishing and testable predictions. We describe how the synergy between MUSE, the single-slit, high-resolution Solar-C EUVST spectrograph, and ground-based observatories (DKIST and others) can address how the solar atmosphere is energized, and the critical role MUSE plays because of the multi-scale nature of the physical processes involved. In this first paper, we focus on how comparisons between MUSE observations and theoretical models will significantly further our understanding of coronal heating mechanisms.
We present a detailed analysis of narrow of NaI and KI absorption resonance lines toward nearly 40 T Tauri stars in Taurus with the goal of clarifying their origin. The NaI 5889.95 angstrom line is detected toward all but one source, while the weaker KI 7698.96 angstrom line in about two thirds of the sample. The similarity in their peak centroids and the significant positive correlation between their equivalent widths demonstrate that these transitions trace the same atomic gas. The absorption lines are present towards both disk and diskless young stellar objects, which excludes cold gas within the circumstellar disk as the absorbing material. A comparison of NaI and CO detections and peak centroids demonstrates that the atomic and molecular gas are not co-located, the atomic gas is more extended than the molecular gas. The width of the atomic lines corroborates this finding and points to atomic gas about an order of magnitude warmer than the molecular gas. The distribution of NaI radial velocities shows a clear spatial gradient along the length of the Taurus molecular cloud filaments. This suggests that absorption is associated with the Taurus molecular cloud. Assuming the gradient is due to cloud rotation, the rotation of the atomic gas is consistent with differential galactic rotation while the rotation of the molecular gas, although with the same rotation axis, is retrograde. Our analysis shows that narrow NaI and KI absorption resonance lines are useful tracers of the atomic envelope of molecular clouds. In line with recent findings from giant molecular clouds, our results demonstrate that the velocity fields of the atomic and molecular gas are misaligned. The angular momentum of a molecular cloud is not simply inherited from the rotating Galactic disk from which it formed but may be redistributed by cloud-cloud interactions.
We study the sodium D lines (D1: 5895.92 AA; D2: 5889.95 AA) in late-type dwarf stars. The stars have spectral types between F6 and M5.5 (B-V between 0.457 and 1.807) and metallicity between [Fe/H] = -0.82 and 0.6. We obtained medium resolution echelle spectra using the 2.15-m telescope at the argentinian observatory CASLEO. The observations have been performed periodically since 1999. The spectra were calibrated in wavelength and in flux. A definition of the pseudo-continuum level is found for all our observations. We also define a continuum level for calibration purposes. The equivalent width of the D lines is computed in detail for all our spectra and related to the colour index (B-V) of the stars. When possible, we perform a careful comparison with previous studies. Finally, we construct a spectral index (R_D) as the ratio between the flux in the D lines, and the bolometric flux. We find that, once corrected for the photospheric contribution, this index can be used as a chromospheric activity indicator in stars with a high level of activity. Additionally, we find that combining some of our results, we obtain a method to calibrate in flux stars of unknown colour.