Emily Deibert is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo, where her research focuses on characterizing the atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters and other exoplanets. Prior to starting at Waterloo, Emily was a Gemini Science Fellow and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gemini South Observatory in La Serena, Chile, where she worked as a member of the instrument science team for the observatory's new high-resolution optical spectrograph, GHOST. Emily completed a PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and an undergraduate degree in Astronomy, English, and Mathematics, from the University of Toronto's St George campus.
Title: Winds & Weather on Ultra-Hot Worlds: A High-Resolution View of Extreme Exoplanet Atmospheres
Abstract: Ultra-hot Jupiter (UHJ) atmospheres are examples of physics and chemistry at the extreme. With high stellar irradiation levels, equilibrium temperatures exceeding 2200 Kelvin, and orbital periods of less than a few days, these exoplanets have permanent, scorching daysides dominated by molecular dissociation and atomic ionization, and cooler, permanent nightsides exhibiting recombination and rainout. Dynamical processes such as atmospheric re-circulation, vertical mixing, and global heat transport, as well as the unique physical properties of each system, dictate how nightside chemistry impacts the dayside, and vice versa.
Today, despite recent progress in the field, major questions remain regarding the formation, evolution, and atmospheric physics of this exoplanet population. In this talk, I will introduce our ongoing SPECTRE-GHOST survey (Spectroscopically Probing Extremely hot Climates of TRansiting Exoplanets with GHOST), which aims to systematically compare chemical and dynamical processes in the daysides and terminator regions of a broad sample of UHJs in order to answer longstanding questions about these extreme worlds. I will present the first results from the survey, which used the high-resolution GHOST optical spectrograph at the Gemini South Observatory to make time-resolved detections of multiple species in a range of UHJ atmospheres. I will also discuss the implications of these early results on our understanding of the UHJ population, and place our work into context with results from high-resolution spectrographs at other wavelength regimes. Finally, I will outline our plans for the remainder of this multi-year survey, and discuss how these results lay the groundwork for observations with the next generation of high-resolution spectrographs on thirty-metre-class telescopes.