摘要：Close-in gas planets are subject to continuous photoevaporation that can erode their volatile envelopes. Today, ongoing mass loss has been confirmed in a few individual systems via transit observations in the ultraviolet spectral range. We demonstrate that the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) onboard theNeil Gehrels SwiftObservatory enables photometry to a relative accuracy of about 0.5% and present the first near-UV (200–270 nm, NUV) transit observations of WASP-121 b, a hot Jupiter with one of the highest predicted mass-loss rates. The data cover the orbital phases 0.85–1.15 with three visits. We measure a broadband NUV transit depth of 2.10 ± 0.29%. While still consistent with the optical value of 1.55%, the NUV data indicate excess absorption of 0.55% at a 1.9σlevel. Such excess absorption is known from the WASP-12 system, and both of these hot Jupiters are expected to undergo mass loss at extremely high rates. With aCloudysimulation, we show that absorption lines of Fe IIin a dense extended atmosphere can cause broadband near-UV absorption at the 0.5% level. Given the numerous lines of low-ionization metals, the NUV range is a promising tracer of photoevaporation in the hottest gas planets.
关键词：Key wordsenplanets and satellites: atmospherestechniques: photometricplanets and satellites: physical evolutionplanet-star interactionsplanets and satellites: individual: WASP-121 bplanets and satellites: individual: WASP-12 b
