Exploring The Surface Of HD 189733 via Doppler Shadow Analysis Of Planetary Transits

Transmission spectroscopy has greatly advanced the study of exoplanet atmospheres, but stellar surface heterogeneities can contaminate transit spectra. Characterising how stellar spectra vary across the stellar disc is therefore essential to disentangle stellar and planetary contributions.

Transit observations can probe the local stellar spectra along the planet’s transit chord. We study centre-to-limb variations of line profiles across the surface of HD 189733 using the ESPRESSO spectrograph. Building on previous work, we assess the feasibility of applying the Doppler shadow technique with ESPRESSO and compare the results with solar observations and numerical simulations.

We analyse spectra obtained during two transits of HD 189733 b. Each spectrum was cross-correlated with two masks of selected Fe I lines, producing four sets of cross-correlation functions (CCFs). Using a Doppler shadow methodology, we retrieved local stellar profiles along the transit chord. These were compared with previous studies, with disc-resolved solar spectra from IAG ATLAS and with transit simulations generated using SOAPv4 and synthetic spectra from Turbospectrum based on MARCS stellar atmosphere models under LTE and NLTE conditions.

For three Fe I CCF sets we detect a statistically significant increase in line depth from stellar limb to centre, consistent with Turbospectrum predictions, although solar data show a weaker gradient. For one CCF set we also find that line widths decrease from limb to centre, consistent with solar observations but not reproduced by the simulations. These results demonstrate the capability of ESPRESSO to measure centre-to-limb variations of spectral line profiles on other stars.

While the local CCF profiles of HD 189733 agree with solar data, discrepancies in line widths suggest that additional physical processes are required to reproduce the observed profiles.

E. C. Gonçalves, E. Cristo, W. Dethier, N. C. Santos, S. G. Sousa, P. T. P. Viana, T. Azevedo Silva, R. Allart, V. Bourrier

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.13463 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2603.13463v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.13463
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Submission history
From: Eduardo Cristo
[v1] Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:29:22 UTC (3,472 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13463

Astrobiology, Astronomy, exoplanet,