Optical Transmission Spectroscopy of the Terrestrial Exoplanet LHS 3844b from 13 Ground-based Transit Observations

Abstract

Atmospheric studies of spectroscopically accessible terrestrial exoplanets lay the groundwork for comparative planetology between these worlds and the solar system terrestrial planets. LHS 3844b is a highly irradiated terrestrial exoplanet ( R  = 1.303 ± 0.022 R ⊕ ) orbiting a mid-M dwarf 15 parsecs away. Work based on near-infrared Spitzer phase curves ruled out atmospheres with surface pressures ≥10 bars on this planet. We present 13 transit observations of LHS 3844b taken with the Magellan Clay telescope and the LDSS3C multi-object spectrograph covering 620–1020 nm. We analyze each of the 13 data sets individually using a Gaussian process regression, and present both white and spectroscopic light curves. In the combined white light curve we achieve an rms precision of 65 ppm when binning to 10 minutes. The mean white light-curve value of ( R p / R s ) 2 is 0.4170 ± 0.0046%. To construct the transmission spectrum, we split the white light curves into 20 spectrophotometric bands, each spanning 20 nm, and compute the mean values of ( R p / R s ) 2 in each band. We compare the transmission spectrum to two sets of atmospheric models. We disfavor a clear, solar composition atmosphere ( μ  = 2.34) with surface pressures ≥0.1 bar to 5.2 σ confidence. We disfavor a clear, H 2 O steam atmosphere ( μ  = 18) with surface pressures ≥0.1 bar to low confidence (2.9 σ ). Our observed transmission spectrum favors a flat line. For solar composition atmospheres with surface pressures ≥1 bar we rule out clouds with cloud-top pressures of 0.1 bar (5.3 σ ), but we cannot address high-altitude clouds at lower pressures. Our results add further evidence that LHS 3844b is devoid of an atmosphere.