Probing the atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters using ground-based occultation photometry (contributed talk)

By observing the occultation of a transiting planet by its
host star in the (near-)IR, the thermal emission of its dayside can be
retrieved. Using this technique at different wavelengths allows to
probe the emission spectrum of the planet’s dayside, from which
insights on the vertical thermal structure and chemical composition of
its atmosphere can be gained. Very hot and inflated gas giants in
very-short-period orbits around their stars are the most favorable
targets for such measurements, thanks to their high temperature and
large size. The atmospheres of such ultra-hot Jupiters are expected to
be conducive for gaseous TiO and VO, which could cause thermal
inversions (i.e. stratospheres) by reprocessing incident UV/visible
irradiation to heat in the upper atmospheric layers. In this talk, I
will present results of an intense ground-based photometric campaign
aiming at probing the emission spectra of WASP-103b and WASP-121b, two
ultra-hot Jupiters orbiting close to their Roche limit.