dc.contributor.author | Wilson, Paul A. | |
dc.contributor.author | Colon, K.D. | |
dc.contributor.author | Sing, David K. | |
dc.contributor.author | Ballester, G. | |
dc.contributor.author | Desert, J.-M. | |
dc.contributor.author | Ehrenreich, D. | |
dc.contributor.author | Ford, E.B. | |
dc.contributor.author | Fortney, J.J. | |
dc.contributor.author | Lecavelier des Etangs, A. | |
dc.contributor.author | Lopez-Morales, M. | |
dc.contributor.author | Morley, C.V. | |
dc.contributor.author | Pettitt, Alex R. | |
dc.contributor.author | Pont, F. | |
dc.contributor.author | Vidal-Madjar, A. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2014-12-15T14:24:40Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2014 | |
dc.description.abstract | We present narrow-band photometric measurements of the exoplanet GJ 1214b using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy instrument. Using tuneable filters, we observed a total of five transits, three of which were observed at two wavelengths nearly simultaneously, producing a total of eight individual light curves, six of these probed the possible existence of a methane absorption feature in the 8770–8850 Å region at high resolution. We detect no increase in the planet-to-star radius ratio across the methane feature with a change in radius ratio of ΔR¯¯¯=−0.0007±0.0017 corresponding to a scaleheight (H) change of −0.5 ± 1.2H across the methane feature, assuming a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. We find that a variety of water and cloudy atmospheric models fit the data well, but find that cloud-free models provide poor fits. These observations support a flat transmission spectrum resulting from the presence of a high-altitude haze or a water-rich atmosphere, in agreement with previous studies. In this study, the observations are pre-dominantly limited by the photometric quality and the limited number of data points (resulting from a long observing cadence), which make the determination of the systematic noise challenging. With tuneable filters capable of high-resolution measurements (R ≈ 600–750) of narrow absorption features, the interpretation of our results are also limited by the absence of high-resolution methane models below 1 μm. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | STRC (Science and Technology Facilities Council) | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | STScI | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | National Geographic Society's Young Explorers Grant | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 438 (3), pp. 2395 - 2405 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1093/mnras/stt2356 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | ST/F011083/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | HST-GO-12473.01-A | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/16041 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stt2356 | en_GB |
dc.subject | techniques: photometric | en_GB |
dc.subject | stars: individual: GJ 1214 | en_GB |
dc.subject | planetary systems | en_GB |
dc.title | A search for methane in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b via GTC narrow-band transmission spectrophotometry | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2014-12-15T14:24:40Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0035-8711 | |
dc.description | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1365-2966 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | en_GB |