Observations of Hot-Jupiter occultations combining Spitzer and Kepler photometry

• Main Authors: Knutson H., Fressin F., Fortney J., Madhusudhan N., Charbonneau D., Désert J. M., Deming D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2011-02-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20101103007
• ISSN: 2100-014X

We present the status of an ongoing program which aim at measuring occultations by their parent stars of transiting hot giant exoplanets discovered recently by Kepler. The observations are obtained in the near infrared with WarmSpitzer Space Telescope and at optical wavelengths by combining more than a year of Kepler photometry. The investigation consists of measuring the mid-occultation times and the relative occultation depths in each band-passes. Our measurements of occultations depths in the Kepler bandpass is turned into the determination of the optical geometric albedo Ag in this wavelength domain. The brightness temperatures of these planets are deduced from the infrared observations. We combine the optical and near infrared planetary emergent fluxes to obtain broad band emergent spectra of individual planet. We finally compare these spectra to hot Jupiter atmospheric models in order broadly distinguishing these atmospheres between different classes of models.