Presentation #102.28 in the session Poster Session.
The existence of temperature inversions in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters has long been a controversial topic, but there is growing evidence that at least some ultra hot Jupiters possess inverted atmospheric profiles. In most cases, however, it is unclear what chemical agents are responsible for the inversions. Most previous searches for inversion agents have been through transmission spectroscopy, but this method typically probes lower pressure levels than those where inversion agents are expected to occur. Emission spectroscopy, on the other hand, is more technically challenging but directly probes the altitudes inhabited by inversion agents.
We present a search for inversion agents in the ultra hot Jupiter KELT-20b/MASCARA-2b using both emission and transmission spectroscopy with the PEPSI high-resolution spectrograph on LBT. An atmospheric inversion was recently detected on this planet by several authors using the spectra of several different atomic and molecular species. We search for inversion agents including TiO, VO, and FeH using cross-correlation methodology. The use of both emission and transmission data allows us to set stringent limits upon the presence of these species at multiple levels in the atmosphere.