WASP-21b light curves

DOI

We present the optical transmission spectrum of the highly inflated Saturn- mass exoplanet WASP-21b, using three transits obtained with the ACAM instrument on the William Herschel Telescope through the LRG-BEASTS survey (Low Resolution Ground-Based Exoplanet Atmosphere Survey using Transmission Spectroscopy). Our transmission spectrum covers a wavelength range of 4635-9000{AA}, achieving an average transit depth precision of 197ppm compared to one atmospheric scale height at 246ppm. We detect NaI absorption in a bin width of 30{AA}, at >4{sigma} confidence, which extends over 100{AA}. We see no evidence of absorption from KI. Atmospheric retrieval analysis of the scattering slope indicates it is too steep for Rayleigh scattering from H_2, but is very similar to that of HD 189733b. The features observed in our transmission spectrum cannot be caused by stellar activity alone, with photometric monitoring of WASP-21 showing it to be an inactive star. We therefore conclude that aerosols in the atmosphere of WASP-21b are giving rise to the steep slope that we observe, and that WASP-21b is an excellent target for infra-red observations to constrain its atmospheric metallicity.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.74975182
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/497/5182
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/497/5182
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/497/5182
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/497/5182
Provenance
Creator Alderson L.; Kirk J.; Lopez-Morales M.; Wheatley P.J.; Skillen I.,Henry G.W.; McGruder C.; Brogi M.; Louden T.; King G.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2020
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Exoplanet Astronomy; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Stellar Astronomy