Publications by authors named "Mark R Swain"

Almost 500 extrasolar planets have been found since the discovery of 51 Peg b by Mayor and Queloz in 1995. The traditional field of planetology has thus expanded its frontiers to include planetary environments not represented in our Solar System. We expect that in the next five years space missions (Corot, Kepler and GAIA) or ground-based detection techniques will both increase exponentially the number of new planets discovered and lower the present limit of a approximately 1.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study uses infrared spectroscopy to analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets, specifically detecting key molecules like water, methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide in hot Jupiters.
  • Ground-based observations of the exoplanet HD 189733b reveal a bright emission feature not detectable by previous space telescopes, confirming that these results align with earlier space-based data.
  • An unexpected feature at around 3.25 micrometers suggests non-local thermodynamic equilibrium effects may be influencing methane's behavior, indicating a need for updated models when studying highly irradiated exoplanet atmospheres.
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Molecules present in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets are expected to influence strongly the balance of atmospheric radiation, to trace dynamical and chemical processes, and to indicate the presence of disequilibrium effects. As molecules have the potential to reveal atmospheric conditions and chemistry, searching for them is a high priority. The rotational-vibrational transition bands of water, carbon monoxide and methane are anticipated to be the primary sources of non-continuum opacity in hot-Jupiter planets.

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The South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI) is the first instrument of its kind-a direct-detection imaging spectrometer for astronomy in the submillimeter band. SPIFI's focal plane is a square array of 25 silicon bolometers cooled to 60 mK; the spectrometer consists of two cryogenic scanning Fabry-Perot interferometers in series with a 60-mK bandpass filter. The instrument operates in the short submillimeter windows (350 and 450 microm) available from the ground, with spectral resolving power selectable between 500 and 10,000.

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