Constraining the Atmospheric Composition of WASP-18b

WASP-18b is one of the hottest and fastest orbiting hot Jupiter exoplanets discovered so far. The goal of this work is to constrain the composition of its atmosphere by comparing the data to theoretical models; and to advance our knowledge of atmospheric processes such as cloud formation. The data consist of optical transmission spectra via multi-object spectroscopy with wide slits, taken using IMACS on the Magellan telescopes at the Las Campan as Observatory, Chile. We are also searching for titanium oxide in the atmosphere of WASP-18b to study hazes & thermal inversions and what causes them. Our result will contribute to comparative studies of exoplanets over a wide range ofradii, masses and temperatures and allow us to refine theories about exoplanet atmospheric chemical, radiative and dynamical processes through modelling. This work will take a step towards probing planets around nearby stars in the next few years and studies of potentially habitable planets. Data reduction was done in a pipeline written by the ACCESS collaboration. ACCESS (Arizona-CfA-Católica Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey) is a project to create a comprehensive database of optical exoplanet spectra, using ground based facilities. I present the work done so far on WASP-18b.