Atmospheres of highly irradiated brown dwarfs WD-0137B and EPIC-2122B

Paper Title:

Atmospheric Retrievals of the Phase-resolved Spectra of Irradiated Brown Dwarfs WD-0137B and EPIC-2122B

Published on:

25 April 2024

Primary Category:

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Paper Authors:

Joshua D. Lothringer,

Yifan Zhou,

Daniel Apai,

Xianyu Tan,

Vivien Parmentier,

Sarah L. Casewell

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Key Details

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WD-0137B resembles ultra hot Jupiters, with an inverted dayside and water absorption on its cooler nightside

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EPIC-2122B stays inverted on its nightside too, showing hot hydrogen minus opacity throughout

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Inclined viewing angles mean parts of the hot dayside are always visible

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Retrieved temperature maps and abundances match phase variations seen

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More observations needed to study carbon species like CO at longer wavelengths

Explore the topics in this paper

atmospheres

brown dwarfs

exoplanets

hubble observations

white dwarfs

AI generated summary

Atmospheres of highly irradiated brown dwarfs WD-0137B and EPIC-2122B

The atmospheres of two brown dwarfs orbiting close to white dwarfs were studied using Hubble Space Telescope spectroscopy across six orbital phases. WD-0137B's atmosphere transitions from hot and inverted on its star-facing side, to cooler with water absorption on its night side, similar to ultra hot Jupiters. Meanwhile EPIC-2122B remains inverted on both sides but hotter overall, showing hydrogen minus opacity throughout. Retrieval modeling suggests differences arise from the inclined viewing angle always revealing some of the hotter dayside atmosphere.