Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Secondary radio eclipse of the transiting planet HD 189733 b: an upper limit at 307-347 MHz

2009; Oxford University Press; Volume: 395; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14510.x

ISSN

1365-2966

Autores

A. M. S. Smith, A. Collier Cameron, J. S. Greaves, M. Jardine, G. I. Langston, D. C. Backer,

Tópico(s)

Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies

Resumo

We report the first attempt to observe the secondary eclipse of a transiting extra-solar planet at radio wavelengths. We observed HD 189733 b with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope of the NRAO over about 5.5 hours before, during and after secondary eclipse, at frequencies of 307 - 347 MHz. In this frequency range, we determine the 3-sigma upper limit to the flux density to be 81 mJy. The data are consistent with no eclipse or a marginal reduction in flux at the time of secondary eclipse in all subsets of our bandwidth; the strongest signal is an apparent eclipse at the 2-sigma level in the 335.2 - 339.3 MHz region. Our observed upper limit is close to theoretical predictions of the flux density of cyclotron-maser radiation from the planet.

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