Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 489, Issue 2, Pages 1995-2013Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz2018
Keywords
accretion, accretion discs; techniques: photometric; planets and satellites: individual (WASP-12b); planet-star interactions
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Funding
- McGill Space Institute Graduate Fellowship
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Nature et technologies through the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique du Quebec
- European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [679633]
- McGill Space Institute
- Institute for Research on Exoplanets
- Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec
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The exoplanet WASP-12b is the prototype for the emerging class of ultrahot, Jupiter-mass exoplanets. Past models have predicted - and near-ultraviolet observations have shown - that this planet is losing mass. We present an analysis of two sets of 3.6 and 4.5 mu m Spitzer phase curve observations of the system which show clear evidence of infrared radiation from gas stripped from the planet, and the gas appears to be flowing directly toward or away from the host star. This accretion signature is only seen at 4.5 mu m, not at 3.6 mu m, which is indicative either of CO emission at the longer wavelength or blackbody emission from cool, less than or similar to 600 K gas. It is unclear why WASP-12b is the only ultrahot Jupiter to exhibit this mass-loss signature, but perhaps WASP-12b's orbit is decaying as some have claimed, while the orbits of other exoplanets may be more stable; alternatively, the high-energy irradiation from WASP-12A may be stronger than the other host stars. We also find evidence for phase offset variability at the level of 6.4 sigma (46.2 degrees) at 3.6 mu m.
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