Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-315/1/a/solution

Assume , , uniform disk-averaged thermal emission, a nearly blackbody stellar continuum, negligible reflected light at , and a flat response over the narrow band. If the eclipse depth is normalized to the out-of-eclipse star-plus-planet flux, the planet/star flux ratio is ; using changes the estimate by less than one percent. The exoplanet secondary eclipse then gives
Using the Planck law at gives , or about at the precision justified by the radius assumption. The Rayleigh-Jeans law instead gives , a useful rough check. This is a brightness temperature, not the bolometric planetary equilibrium temperature. With zero Bond albedo and global redistribution, the latter would be only about at ; a thermal window can sample hotter, deeper gas.
A continuum photon normally emerges from an optical depth of order unity. In hydrostatic equilibrium,
The emission-pressure degeneracy of a brightness temperature means that pressure cannot be uniquely recovered from the measured brightness temperature without and an opacity model. For an explicit nominal estimate, take and an effective continuum mass absorption coefficient . Then , or approximately one bar. In a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, collision-induced absorption by transient pairs supplies continuum opacity even without ordinary molecular lines; its density dependence makes the constant-opacity calculation an illustrative estimate. With a normal deep atmospheric pressure-temperature profile, temperature increases at larger pressures, eventually following an interior adiabatic temperature gradient.
Two mechanisms for are wavelength-dependent sampling of a vertically varying temperature, and wavelength-dependent weighting of a horizontally nonuniform dayside. In the first, carbon monoxide-rich opacity near can sample cooler gas around bar while the continuum samples hotter gas around one bar. In the second, hot and cool areas contribute different proportions of the total flux in different bands because the Planck function depends nonlinearly on temperature. The vertical mechanism alone produces the illustrated pair of temperatures; a single isothermal, horizontally uniform blackbody would have the same brightness temperature in both bands.
Figure 1.
Illustrative pressure-temperature profile with different infrared brightness-temperature contribution depths
. Details.
If the J-band observation is thermal emission, its low-opacity window normally samples at least as deeply as the continuum at . On the illustrated non-inverted profile, . The ordering is conditional: molecular-line absence alone does not specify the relative continuum opacities, and an inversion or reflected-light contamination can change the inference. The exoplanet emission spectrum measures weighted contribution regions rather than three exact thermometers at known pressures.

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