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Recorded video: YouTube, Bilibili

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Abstract:

Narrow-band, high-resolution spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful complementary technique to space-based observations and has provided the exoplanet community with various detected atmospheric signatures. Due to the detections of the line centre and wings, resolved lines such as sodium give us a valuable insight into the vertical structure of exoplanet atmospheres not accessible with low-resolution space-based missions. 

ESPRESSO, as the first high-resolution spectrograph of the 2020s, has brought a significant increase in line precision, as shown with the re-observation of WASP-76b (Tabernero et al. 2020) and WASP-121b (Borsa et al. 2021), allowing us to move beyond the sole observation of the sodium doublet to a plethora of resolved spectral lines and opening the first door into line shape interpretation.

The analysis of line shapes in ESPRESSO data permits us to retrieve wind patterns in the upper atmosphere, but additionally also gives us unprecedented observational insights into the lower atmosphere from the line wings (Seidel et al. 2021). In this talk I will provide the community with a guide what we can, and can’t derive about atmospheric winds in exoplanet atmospheres with the current data quality and what lies beyond the study of atmospheric winds: the derivation of exoplanet atmospheric field strength and the possible origins of the detected signals – volcanoes, debris disks, and exo-moons.

About the speaker:

Dr. Julia V. Seidel is a post-doctoral Fellow at the European Southern Observatory, mainly working at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, as well as one of ESO’s ESPRESSO Instrument Fellows. She has obtained her PhD at the University of Geneva in Switzerland on the study of exoplanet atmospheres. Her work focuses on the observation of atmospheric dynamics and the various applications of narrow-band, high-resolution spectroscopy. She additionally works on the study of terrestrial atmospheric conditions at telescope sites and various outreach projects geared towards Latin America.

Audience in the world:

(image credit: timeanddate.com)

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