RT Journal Article
T1 Detection of the hydrogen Balmer lines in the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-33b
A1 Caballero, J. A.
A1 Montes Gutiérrez, David
AB Ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs) are highly irradiated giant exoplanets with extremely high day-side temperatures, which lead to thermal dissociation of most of the molecular species. It is expected that the neutral hydrogen atom is one of the main species in the upper atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters. Neutral hydrogen has been detected in several UHJs by observing its Balmer line absorption. Here, we report four transit observations of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-33b, performed with the CARMENES and HARPS-North spectrographs, and the detection of the Hα, Hβ, and Hγ lines in the planetary transmission spectrum. The combined Hα transmission spectrum of the four transits has an absorption depth of 0.99±0.05 %, which corresponds to an effective radius of 1.31±0.01 R_(p). The strong Hα absorption indicates that the line probes the high-altitude thermosphere. We further fitted the three Balmer lines using the PAWN model, assuming that the atmosphere is hydrodynamic and in LTE. We retrieved a thermosphere temperature 12200^(+1300)_(−1000) K and a mass-loss rate Ṁ = 10^(11.8)^^(+0.6)__(−0.5) g s^(−1) . The retrieved large mass-loss rate is compatible with the “Balmer-driven” atmospheric escape scenario, in which the stellar Balmer continua radiation in the near-ultraviolet is substantially absorbed by the excited hydrogen atoms in the planetary thermosphere.
PB EDP Sciencies
SN 0004-6361
YR 2020
FD 2020-12-22
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/7779
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/7779
LA eng
NO © ESO 2020. Artículo firmado por 27 autores. Program via ERC grant 832428. I.S. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 694513. M.L. achkowledges the funding from the project ESP2017-87143-R. This work is based on observations made with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated on the island of La Palma by the Fundación Galileo Galilei of the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica) at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.
NO Unión Europea. Horizonte 2020
NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 11 may 2025