Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Lrg-Beasts: Ground-Based Detection Of Sodium And A Steep Optical Slope In The Atmosphere Of The Highly Inflated Hot-Saturn Wasp-21b, Lili Alderson, James Kirk, Mercedes López-Morales, Peter J. Wheatley, Ian Skillen, Gregory W. Henry, Chima Mcgruder, Matteo Brogi, Tom Louden, George King

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

We present the optical transmission spectrum of the highly inflated Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-21b, using three transits obtained with the ACAM instrument on the William Herschel Telescope through the LRG-BEASTS survey (Low Resolution Ground-Based Exoplanet Atmosphere Survey using Transmission Spectroscopy). Our transmission spectrum covers a wavelength range of 4635–9000 Å, achieving an average transit depth precision of 197 ppm compared to one atmospheric scale height at 246 ppm. We detect Na i absorption in a bin width of 30 Å  at >4σ confidence, which extends over 100 Å. We see no evidence of absorption from K i. Atmospheric retrieval analysis of …