Bryce Croll (MIT)

Near-infrared Thermal Emission of Hot Jupiters and the Spectral Features of Super-Earths

I will present recent detections of the thermal emission of hot Jupiters in the near-infrared as well as our attempts to detect the spectral features in the broadband transmission spectrum of the super-Earth GJ 1214b. The near-infrared is where the blackbodies of many hot Jupiters peak, and thus it is in this wavelength range where we are able to obtain the most direct constraints on the atmospheric characteristics of these planets; I'll summarize what the near-infrared wavelength range has taught us about hot Jupiters. On the super-Earth front, transmission spectroscopy promises to tell us whether this new super-Earth class of exoplanets are best thought of as scaled-up Earth-like planets or scaled-down Neptune-like planets. I'll present recent near-infrared observations from the 2011 observing season of one of these super-Earths, GJ 1214b, and discuss whether our repeated observations reconfirm a deeper Ks-band transit depth. A deeper Ks-band transit depth would argue for a spectral absorption feature, and that GJ 1214b is likely a hydrogen/helium dominated mini-Neptune with a significant haze layer that obscures transmission spectroscopy observations at shorter wavelengths.