(Proposal ID) S16A-107

(PI) Kawahara, Hajime

(Proposal Title)
Search for an Agent of Thermal Inversion in a Hot Jupiter

(Abstract)
Thermal inversions in exoplanetary atmosphere have been one of the major 
subjects in the exoplanetary climate field. Existence of the thermal inversion 
still remains in debate. Therefore, direct detection of the absorber is 
critical to settle the debate for existence of the thermal inversion in hot 
Jupiters. Among the compounds, TiO is the most promising absorber which causes 
the thermal inversion. We propose a HDS observation of the transmission 
spectra of HD209458b in the range of 640-840nm. The molecular database in this 
range is considered to be valid, but, there are two major difficulties: One is 
the fringe removal and another is the subtraction of telluric water lines. We 
have developed a pipeline to solve these problem. Injecting mock signal to real
 HDS spectra, We performed mock observation using the pipeline. We found that 
a TiO signal is detectable by the HDS observation of the transmission spectra 
in 640-840nm. This observation should detect TiO or refute the most promissing 
absorber of the thermal inversion in hot Jupiters.