Limits On the Posteclipse Emission Spectrum of HD 80606 b From High-resolution Spectroscopy
April 2026 • 2026AJ....171..213F
Abstract • We present Keck/NIRSPEC K-band observations of HD 80606 b, one of the most eccentric known exoplanets. HD 80606 b was observed after secondary eclipse, close to periastron, when the planet passes within 0.03 au of HD 80606 and the rapid heating of the atmosphere may lead to extreme chemical changes and a temporary thermal inversion. The rapid change in the planetary radial velocity near periastron is sufficient to enable high-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy analysis, which produces a tentative detection (SNR ∼ 4) of HD 80606 b. Injection-recovery tests appear to reject strong thermal inversions near periastron, consistent with recent results from JWST. We also perform atmospheric retrievals with free parameters for the pressure─temperature profile and with a profile matched to the JWST results, which suggest the presence of absorption features from CH4 and CO. While HD 80606 b is not definitively detected in these data, these results are consistent with JWST observations, which found that the posteclipse atmosphere of HD 80606 b shows weak absorption features from these species. Future observations with higher spectral resolution and/or wider wavelength coverage are needed for a confident atmospheric detection of HD 80606 b via high-resolution spectroscopy alone, but such observations are a challenge to schedule due to the 111 days orbital period.
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