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Detecting exomoons around self-luminous giant exoplanets through polarization

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dc.contributor.author Sengupta, S
dc.contributor.author Marley, M. S
dc.date.accessioned 2020-11-17T14:39:27Z
dc.date.available 2020-11-17T14:39:27Z
dc.date.issued 2016-06-20
dc.identifier.citation Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 824, No. 2, 76 en_US
dc.identifier.issn 1538-4357
dc.identifier.uri http://prints.iiap.res.in/handle/2248/7183
dc.description Restricted Access © The American Astronomical Society http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/824/2/76 en_US
dc.description.abstract Many of the directly imaged self-luminous gas-giant exoplanets have been found to have cloudy atmospheres. Scattering of the emergent thermal radiation from these planets by the dust grains in their atmospheres should locally give rise to significant linear polarization of the emitted radiation. However, the observable disk-averaged polarization should be zero if the planet is spherically symmetric. Rotation-induced oblateness may yield a net non-zero disk-averaged polarization if the planets have sufficiently high spin rotation velocity. On the other hand, when a large natural satellite or exomoon transits a planet with a cloudy atmosphere along the line of sight, the asymmetry induced during the transit should give rise to a net non-zero, time-resolved linear polarization signal. The peak amplitude of such time-dependent polarization may be detectable even for slowly rotating exoplanets. Therefore, we suggest that large exomoons around directly imaged self-luminous exoplanets may be detectable through time-resolved imaging polarimetry. Adopting detailed atmospheric models for several values of effective temperature and surface gravity that are appropriate for self-luminous exoplanets, we present the polarization profiles of these objects in the infrared during the transit phase and estimate the peak amplitude of polarization that occurs during the inner contacts of the transit ingress/egress phase. The peak polarization is predicted to range between 0.1% and 0.3% in the infrared. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher IOP Publishing en_US
dc.subject Infrared: planetary systems en_US
dc.subject Occultations en_US
dc.subject Planets and satellites: atmospheres en_US
dc.subject Planets and satellites: detection en_US
dc.subject Polarization en_US
dc.subject Scattering en_US
dc.title Detecting exomoons around self-luminous giant exoplanets through polarization en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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