Orbital parameters of extrasolar planets derived from polarimetry

Abstract

Polarimetry of extrasolar planets becomes a new tool for their investigation, which requires the development of diagnostic techniques and parameter case studies. Our goal is to develop a theoretical model which can be applied to interpret polarimetric observations of extrasolar planets. Here we present a theoretical parameter study that shows the influence of the various involved parameters on the polarization curves. Furthermore, we investigate the robustness of the fitting procedure. We employ the physics of Rayleigh scattering to obtain polarization curves of an unresolved extrasolar planet. Calculations are made for two cases: (i) assuming an angular distribution for the intensity of the scattered light as from a Lambert sphere and for polarization as from a Rayleigh-type scatterer, and (ii) assuming that both the intensity and polarization of the scattered light are distributed according to the Rayleigh law. We show that the difference between these two cases is negligible for the shapes of the polarization curves. In addition, we take the size of the host star into account, which is relevant for hot Jupiters orbiting giant stars.

References in corpus (11)

• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Detection of Thermal Emission from an Extrasolar Planet
• Detection of atmospheric haze on an extrasolar planet: The 0.55 - 1.05 micron transmission spectrum of HD189733b with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Rayleigh scattering in the transit spectrum of HD 189733b
• The phase-dependent Infrared brightness of the extrasolar planet upsilon Andromedae b
• Strong Infrared Emission from the Extrasolar Planet HD189733b
• Measurement of the Spin-Orbit Alignment in the Exoplanetary System HD 189733
• First detection of polarized scattered light from an exoplanetary atmosphere
• Non-Detection of Polarized, Scattered Light from the HD 189733b Hot Jupiter
• Planetpol polarimetry of the exoplanet systems 55 Cnc and tau Boo
• Cloudy Atmosphere of the Extra-solar Planet HD189733b : A Possible Explanation of the Detected B-band Polarization

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Polarized reflected light from the exoplanet HD189733b: First multicolor observations and confirmation of detection
• Classical and relativistic node precessional effects in WASP-33b and perspectives for detecting them
• Pre-conditioned Backward Monte Carlo solutions to radiative transport in planetary atmospheres. Fundamentals: Sampling of propagation directions in polarising media
• Polarization in exoplanetary systems caused by transits, grazing transits, and starspots
• Using polarimetry to retrieve the cloud coverage of Earth-like exoplanets
• The polarization of the planet-hosting WASP-18 system
• Predicting exoplanet observability in time, contrast, separation and polarization, in scattered light
• On mapping exoplanet atmospheres with high-dispersion spectro-polarimetry. Some model predictions
• Water versus land on temperate rocky planets
• How much large dust could be present in hot exozodiacal dust systems?
• A uniform treatment of the orbital effects due to a violation of the Strong Equivalence Principle in the gravitational Stark-like limit
• Exoplanet Terra Incognita