A Benchmark JWST Near-Infrared Spectrum for the Exoplanet WASP-39b

Abstract

Observing exoplanets through transmission spectroscopy supplies detailed information on their atmospheric composition, physics, and chemistry. Prior to JWST, these observations were limited to a narrow wavelength range across the near-ultraviolet to near-infrared, alongside broadband photometry at longer wavelengths. To understand more complex properties of exoplanet atmospheres, improved wavelength coverage and resolution are necessary to robustly quantify the influence of a broader range of absorbing molecular species. Here we present a combined analysis of JWST transmission spectroscopy across four different instrumental modes spanning 0.5-5.2 micron using Early Release Science observations of the Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b. Our uniform analysis constrains the orbital and stellar parameters within sub-percent precision, including matching the precision obtained by the most precise asteroseismology measurements of stellar density to-date, and further confirms the presence of Na, K, H${}_2$O, CO, CO${}_2$, and SO${}_2$ atmospheric absorbers. Through this process, we also improve the agreement between the transmission spectra of all modes, except for the NIRSpec PRISM, which is affected by partial saturation of the detector. This work provides strong evidence that uniform light curve analysis is an important aspect to ensuring reliability when comparing the high-precision transmission spectra provided by JWST.

arXiv comment34 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. Nat Astron (2024)

References in corpus (52)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• batman: BAsic Transit Model cAlculatioN in Python
• The effects of snowlines on C/O in planetary atmospheres
• Achieving better than 1 minute accuracy in the Heliocentric and Barycentric Julian Dates
• Efficient, uninformative sampling of limb darkening coefficients for two-parameter laws
• On the Unique Solution of Planet and Star Parameters from an Extrasolar Planet Transit Light Curve
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope I. Overview of the instrument and its capabilities
• C/O ratio as a Dimension for Characterizing Exoplanetary Atmospheres
• Rayleigh scattering in the transit spectrum of HD 189733b
• The Transit Light Source Effect: False Spectral Features and Incorrect Densities for M-dwarf Transiting Planets
• Helium in the eroding atmosphere of an exoplanet
• Juliet: a versatile modelling tool for transiting and non-transiting exoplanetary systems
• Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM
• Standing on the shoulders of Dwarfs: the Kepler asteroseismic LEGACY sample II - radii, masses, and ages
• Chemical consequences of the C/O ratio on hot Jupiters: Examples from WASP-12b,CoRoT-2b, XO-1b, and HD 189733b
• The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS)
• Early Release Science of the Exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H
• Model atmospheres of irradiated exoplanets: The influence of stellar parameters, metallicity, and the C/O ratio
• A New Window into Escaping Exoplanet Atmospheres: 10830 Å Line of Helium
• Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS
• The Influence of Non-Uniform Cloud Cover on Transit Transmission Spectra
• VULCAN: an Open-Source, Validated Chemical Kinetics Python Code for Exoplanetary Atmospheres
• Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRCam
• Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere
• High Tide or Riptide on the Cosmic Shoreline? A Water-Rich Atmosphere or Stellar Contamination for the Warm Super-Earth GJ~486b from JWST Observations
• The Complete transmission spectrum of WASP-39b with a precise water constraint
• Eureka!: An End-to-End Pipeline for JWST Time-Series Observations
• The Transit Light Source Effect II: The Impact of Stellar Heterogeneity on Transmission Spectra of Planets Orbiting Broadly Sun-like Stars
• Probing the haze in the atmosphere of HD 189733b with HST/WFC3 transmission spectroscopy
• Friends of Hot Jupiters. IV. Stellar companions beyond 50 AU might facilitate giant planet formation, but most are unlikely to cause Kozai-Lidov migration
• WASP-39b: a highly inflated Saturn-mass planet orbiting a late G-type star
• The Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program for JWST
• VLT FORS2 comparative transmission spectroscopy: Detection of Na in the atmosphere of WASP-39b from the ground
• Metal enrichment leads to low atmospheric C/O ratios in transiting giant exoplanets
• Transiting Exoplanet Studies and Community Targets for JWST's Early Release Science Program
• A Physical Model-based Correction for Charge Traps in the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 Near-IR Detector and Applications to Transiting Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope IV. Capabilities and predicted performance for exoplanet characterization
• HST hot-Jupiter transmission spectral survey: Clear skies for cool Saturn WASP-39b
• Awesome SOSS: Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-96b with NIRISS/SOSS
• Analysis of a JWST NIRSpec Lab Time Series: Characterizing Systematics, Recovering Exoplanet Transit Spectroscopy, and Constraining a Noise Floor
• Ground- and Space-based Detection of the Thermal Emission Spectrum of the Transiting Hot Jupiter KELT-2Ab
• LRG-BEASTS: transmission spectroscopy and retrieval analysis of the highly-inflated Saturn-mass planet WASP-39b
• The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph for the James Webb Space Telescope -- III. Single Object Slitless Spectroscopy
• Spectroscopic Time-series Performance of JWST/NIRSpec from Commissioning Observations
• High-resolution Imaging of Transiting Extrasolar Planetary systems (HITEP). II. Lucky Imaging results from 2015 and 2016
• JWST NIRCam Defocused Imaging: Photometric Stability Performance and How it Can Sense Mirror Tilts
• A Mini-Chemical Scheme with Net Reactions for 3D GCMs I.: Thermochemical Kinetics
• New transit observations for HAT-P-30 b, HAT-P-37 b, TrES-5 b, WASP-28 b, WASP-36 b, and WASP-39 b

Cited by in corpus (25)

• JWST-TST DREAMS: NIRSpec/PRISM Transmission Spectroscopy of the Habitable Zone Planet TRAPPIST-1 e
• BOWIE-ALIGN: JWST reveals hints of planetesimal accretion and complex sulphur chemistry in the atmosphere of the misaligned hot Jupiter WASP-15b
• Challenges in the detection of gases in exoplanet atmospheres
• BOWIE-ALIGN: A JWST comparative survey of aligned vs misaligned hot Jupiters to test the dependence of atmospheric composition on migration history
• A Panchromatic Characterization of the Evening and Morning Atmosphere of WASP-107 b: Composition and Cloud Variations, and Insight into the Effect of Stellar Contamination
• Prospects for Detecting Signs of Life on Exoplanets in the JWST Era
• Tracing the formation and migration history: molecular signatures in the atmosphere of misaligned hot Jupiter WASP-94Ab using JWST NIRSpec/G395H
• Cloud and Haze Parameterization in Atmospheric Retrievals: Insights from Titan's Cassini Data and JWST Observations of Hot Jupiters
• Enabling Robust Exoplanet Atmospheric Retrievals with Gaussian Processes
• Cthulhu: An Open Source Molecular and Atomic Cross Section Computation Code for Substellar Atmospheres
• GEMS JWST: Transmission spectroscopy of TOI-5205b reveals significant stellar contamination and a metal-poor atmosphere
• Near-instantaneous Atmospheric Retrievals and Model Comparison with FASTER
• An Analytic Characterization of the Limb Asymmetry -- Transit Time Degeneracy
• A Moderate Albedo from Reflecting Aerosols on the Dayside of WASP-80 b Revealed by JWST/NIRISS Eclipse Spectroscopy
• Exploring Exoplanet Dynamics with JWST: Tides, Rotation, Rings, and Moons
• Knobs and dials of retrieving JWST transmission spectra. II. Impacts of pipeline-level differences on retrieval posteriors
• A transiting rocky super-Earth and a non-transiting sub-Neptune orbiting the M dwarf TOI-771
• Reliability of 1D radiative-convective photochemical-equilibrium retrievals on transit spectra of WASP-107b
• Accelerating exoplanet climate modelling: A machine learning approach to complement 3D GCM grid simulations
• A new look into the atmospheric composition of WASP-39 b
• KRONOS I: The $1-2.8\mu$m JWST Transmission Spectrum of the 23 Myr V1298 Tau c
• Light Echoes of Protoplanetary Disks
• Exposure-averaged Gaussian Processes for Combining Overlapping Datasets
• The effect of JWST/NIRSpec data reduction on the retrieval of WASP-39b atmospheric properties
• Information content of JWST transmission spectroscopy of the exoplanet HAT-P-12b from the optical to the mid-infrared