arXiv subjects

Ingo P. Waldmann

Publications and source records attributed to Ingo P. Waldmann.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Tau-REx I: A next generation retrieval code for exoplanetary atmospheres

Spectroscopy of exoplanetary atmospheres has become a well established method for the characterisation of extrasolar planets. We here present a novel inverse retrieval code for exoplanetary atmospheres. TauRex (Tau Retrieval for Exoplanets) is a line-by-line radiative transfer fully Bayesian retrieval framework. TauRex includes the following features: 1) the optimised use of molecular line-lists from the Exomol project; 2) an unbiased atmospheric composition prior selection, through custom built pattern recognition software; 3) the use of two independent algorithms to fully sample the Bayesian likelihood space: nested sampling as well as a more classical Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach; 4) iterative Bayesian parameter and model selection using the full Bayesian Evidence as well as the Savage-Dickey Ratio for nested models, and 5) the ability to fully map very large parameter spaces through optimal code parallelisation and scalability to cluster computing. In this publication we outline the TauRex framework and demonstrate, using a theoretical hot-Jupiter transmission spectrum, the parameter retrieval and model selection. We investigate the impact of Signal-to-Noise and spectral resolution on the retrievability of individual model parameters, both in terms of error bars on the temperature and molecular mixing ratios as well as its effect on the model's global Bayesian evidence.

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arXiv2014

The ground-based H, K, and L-band absolute emission spectra of HD 209458b

Here we explore the capabilities of NASA's 3.0 meter Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) and SpeX spectrometer and the 5.08 meter Hale telescope with the TripleSpec spectrometer with near-infrared H, K, and L-band measurements of HD 209458b's secondary eclipse. Our IRTF/SpeX data are the first absolute L-band spectroscopic emission measurements of any exoplanet other than the hot Jupiter HD 189733b. Previous measurements of HD 189733b's L-band indicate bright emission hypothesized to result from non-LTE CH$_{4}$ $ν_{3}$ fluorescence. We do not detect a similar bright 3.3 $μ$m feature to ~3$σ$, suggesting that fluorescence does not need to be invoked to explain HD 209458b's L-band measurements. The validity of our observation and reduction techniques, which decrease the flux variance by up to 2.8 orders of magnitude, is reinforced by 1$σ$ agreement with existent $Hubble$/NICMOS and $Spitzer$/IRAC1 observations which overlap the H, K, and L-bands, suggesting that both IRTF/SpeX and Palomar/TripleSpec can measure an exoplanet's emission with high precision.

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arXiv2014

Rossiter-McLaughlin Observations of 55 Cnc e

We present Rossiter-McLaughlin observations of the transiting super-Earth 55 Cnc e collected during six transit events between January 2012 and November 2013 with HARPS and HARPS-N. We detect no radial-velocity signal above 35 cm/s (3-sigma) and confine the stellar v sin i to 0.2 +/- 0.5 km/s. The star appears to be a very slow rotator, producing a very low amplitude Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Given such a low amplitude, the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect of 55 Cnc e is undetected in our data, and any spin-orbit angle of the system remains possible. We also performed Doppler tomography and reach a similar conclusion. Our results offer a glimpse of the capacity of future instrumentation to study low amplitude Rossiter-McLaughlin effects produced by super-Earths.

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arXiv2014

A new look at Spitzer primary transit observations of the exoplanet HD189733b

Blind source separation techniques are used to reanalyse two exoplanetary transit lightcurves of the exoplanet HD189733b recorded with the IR camera IRAC on board the Spitzer Space Telescope at 3.6$μ$m during the "cold" era. These observations, together with observations at other IR wavelengths, are crucial to characterise the atmosphere of the planet HD189733b. Previous analyses of the same datasets reported discrepant results, hence the necessity of the reanalyses. The method we used here is based on the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) statistical technique, which ensures a high degree of objectivity. The use of ICA to detrend single photometric observations in a self-consistent way is novel in the literature. The advantage of our reanalyses over previous work is that we do not have to make any assumptions on the structure of the unknown instrumental systematics. Such "admission of ignorance" may result in larger error bars than reported in the literature, up to a factor $1.6$. This is a worthwhile trade-off for much higher objectivity, necessary for trustworthy claims. Our main results are (1) improved and robust values of orbital and stellar parameters, (2) new measurements of the transit depths at 3.6$μ$m, (3) consistency between the parameters estimated from the two observations, (4) repeatability of the measurement within the photometric level of $\sim 2 \times 10^{-4}$ in the IR, (5) no evidence of stellar variability at the same photometric level within 1 year.

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arXiv2014

Data analysis Pipeline for EChO end-to-end simulations

Atmospheric spectroscopy of extrasolar planets is an intricate business. Atmospheric signatures typically require a photometric precision of $1 \times 10^{-4}$ in flux over several hours. Such precision demands high instrument stability as well as an understanding of stellar variability and an optimal data reduction and removal of systematic noise. In the context of the EChO mission concept, we here discuss the data reduction and analysis pipeline developed for the EChO end-to-end simulator EChOSim. We present and discuss the step by step procedures required in order to obtain the final exoplanetary spectrum from the EChOSim`raw data' using a simulated observation of the secondary eclipse of the hot-Neptune 55 Cnc e.

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arXiv2013

Blind extraction of an exoplanetary spectrum through Independent Component Analysis

Blind-source separation techniques are used to extract the transmission spectrum of the hot-Jupiter HD189733b recorded by the Hubble/NICMOS instrument. Such a 'blind' analysis of the data is based on the concept of independent component analysis. The de-trending of Hubble/NICMOS data using the sole assumption that nongaussian systematic noise is statistically independent from the desired light-curve signals is presented. By not assuming any prior, nor auxiliary information but the data themselves, it is shown that spectroscopic errors only about 10 - 30% larger than parametric methods can be obtained for 11 spectral bins with bin sizes of ~0.09 microns. This represents a reasonable trade-off between a higher degree of objectivity for the non-parametric methods and smaller standard errors for the parametric de-trending. Results are discussed in the light of previous analyses published in the literature. The fact that three very different analysis techniques yield comparable spectra is a strong indication of the stability of these results.

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arXiv2011

Of `Cocktail Parties' and Exoplanets

The characterisation of ever smaller and fainter extrasolar planets requires an intricate understanding of one's data and the analysis techniques used. Correcting the raw data at the 10^-4 level of accuracy in flux is one of the central challenges. This can be difficult for instruments that do not feature a calibration plan for such high precision measurements. Here, it is not always obvious how to de-correlate the data using auxiliary information of the instrument and it becomes paramount to know how well one can disentangle instrument systematics from one's data, given nothing but the data itself. We propose a non-parametric machine learning algorithm, based on the concept of independent component analysis, to de-convolve the systematic noise and all non-Gaussian signals from the desired astrophysical signal. Such a `blind' signal de-mixing is commonly known as the `Cocktail Party problem' in signal-processing. Given multiple simultaneous observations of the same exoplanetary eclipse, as in the case of spectrophotometry, we show that we can often disentangle systematic noise from the original light curve signal without the use of any complementary information of the instrument. In this paper, we explore these signal extraction techniques using simulated data and two data sets observed with the Hubble-NICMOS instrument. Another important application is the de-correlation of the exoplanetary signal from time-correlated stellar variability. Using data obtained by the Kepler mission we show that the desired signal can be de-convolved from the stellar noise using a single time series spanning several eclipse events. Such non-parametric techniques can provide important confirmations of the existent parametric corrections reported in the literature, and their associated results. Additionally they can substantially improve the precision exoplanetary light curve analysis in the future.

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