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Seminars

Ground-based detection of exoplanetary atmospheres using medium to high resolution spectroscopy

Sala de Titulación, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias UDP | April 18 11:00
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Dr. Elyar Sedaghati

ESO

 

Abstract:

Transiting exoplanets provide a great opportunity to investigate deeper physical characteristics of these alien worlds. Arguably, the most fascinating of those traits is the composition of their atmospheres. Not only does this provide clues as to the formation mechanisms and history of planetary systems, it also provides an avenue for searching possible biomarkers in the near-future. I will firstly present the detection of titanium oxide in the atmosphere of the hot-Jupiter WASP-19b, using the FORS2 instrument at ESO’s VLT. This includes multi-epoch, multi-band spectroscopic observations at medium resolution and high cadence, essentially measuring chromatic variations in the relative planetary radius using differential spectrophotometric technique. With this, I will also explain in detail the Gaussian Process technique used in modeling the correlated noise in the data. Secondly, I present my current research of exoplanetary atmosphere detection using high resolution and stable spectroscopy, which involved Cross-Correlation techniques for the enhancement of shifting planetary signal among the relatively-stationary stellar components. This includes the currently on-going projects with the ESPRESSO spectrograph and the incoherent combined coudé facility at Paranal Observatory, as well as plans for similar research with the upcoming CRIRES+ instrument, the IR cross-dispersed Echelle spectrograph