THE ALBEDOS OF KEPLER’ S CLOSE-IN SUPER-EARTHS
Name
Demory-2014-THE ALBEDOS OF KEPLE.pdf
Size
249.02 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f73dbfe75b9aeb4b2c30a8a709c2eb7f
Author(s)
Demory, Brice-Olivier
Date Issued
June 2014
Journal
Astrophysical Journal. Letters
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Demory, Brice-Olivier. “ THE ALBEDOS OF KEPLER’ S CLOSE-IN SUPER-EARTHS .” The Astrophysical Journal 789, no. 1 (June 19, 2014): L20. © 201 The American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Exoplanet research focusing on the characterization of super-Earths is currently limited to the handful of targets orbiting bright stars that are amenable to detailed study. This Letter proposes to look at alternative avenues to probe the surface and atmospheric properties of this category of planets, known to be ubiquitous in our galaxy. I conduct Markov Chain Monte Carlo light-curves analyses for 97 Kepler close-in RP [< over ~] 2.0 R [subscript ⊕] super-Earth candidates with the aim of detecting their occultations at visible wavelengths. Brightness temperatures and geometric albedos in the Kepler bandpass are constrained for 27 super-Earth candidates. A hierarchical Bayesian modeling approach is then employed to characterize the population-level reflective properties of these close-in super-Earths. I find median geometric albedos A[subscript g] in the Kepler bandpass ranging between 0.16 and 0.30, once decontaminated from thermal emission. These super-Earth geometric albedos are statistically larger than for hot Jupiters, which have medians A[subscript g] ranging between 0.06 and 0.11. A subset of objects, including Kepler-10b, exhibit significantly larger albedos (A[subscript g] [> over ~] 0.4). I argue that a better understanding of the incidence of stellar irradation on planetary surface and atmospheric processes is key to explain the diversity in albedos observed for close-in super-Earths.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/789/1/l20
