HST hot Jupiter transmission spectral survey: detection of water in HAT-P-1b from WFC3 near-IR spatial scan observations

Abstract

We present Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared transmission spectroscopy of the transiting hot-Jupiter HAT-P-1b. We observed one transit with Wide Field Camera 3 using the G141 lowresolution grism to cover the wavelength range 1.087-1.678 m. These time series observations were taken with the newly available spatial-scan mode that increases the duty cycle by nearly a factor of 2, thus improving the resulting photometric precision of the data. We measure a planetto-star radius ratio of R p /R * = 0.117 09 0.000 38 in the white light curve with the centre of transit occurring at 245 6114.345 0.000 133 (JD). We achieve S/N levels per exposure of 1840 (0.061 per cent) at a resolution of = 19.2 nm (R 70) in the 1.1173-1.6549 m spectral region, providing the precision necessary to probe the transmission spectrum of the planet at close to the resolution limit of the instrument. We compute the transmission spectrum using both single target and differential photometry with similar results. The resultant transmission spectrum shows a significant absorption above the 5 level matching the 1.4 m water absorption band. In solar composition models, the water absorption is sensitive to the 1 m bar pressure levels at the terminator. The detected absorption agrees with that predicted by a 1000 K isothermal model, as well as with that predicted by a planetary-averaged temperature model.