A New 24 μm Phase Curve for υ Andromedae b

• Main Authors: Crossfield, Ian J. (Author), Hansen, Brad M. S. (Author), Harrington, Joseph (Author), Cho, James Y. -K (Author), Deming, Drake (Author), Menou, Kristen (Author), Seager, Sara (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing, 2012-10-19T16:02:03Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We report the detection of 24 μm variations from the planet-hosting υ Andromedae system consistent with the orbital periodicity of the system's innermost planet, υ And b. We find a peak-to-valley phase curve amplitude of 0.00130 times the mean system flux. Using a simple model with two hemispheres of constant surface brightness and assuming a planetary radius of 1.3 R[subscript J] give a planetary temperature contrast of ≳900 K and an orbital inclination of ≳28°. We further report the largest phase offset yet observed for an extrasolar planet: the flux maximum occurs ~80° before phase 0.5. Such a large phase offset is difficult to reconcile with most current atmospheric circulation models. We improve on earlier observations of this system in several important ways: (1) observations of a flux calibrator star demonstrate the MIPS detector is stable to 10[superscript -4] on long timescales, (2) we note that the background light varies systematically due to spacecraft operations, precluding use of this background as a flux calibrator (stellar flux measured above the background is not similarly affected), and (3) we calibrate for flux variability correlated with motion of the star on the MIPS detector. A reanalysis of our earlier observations of this system is consistent with our new result.
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant PHY05-51164)