Publications

 
Below are a selection of publications that have originated as a part of the BOWIE+ collaboration.

BOWIE-ALIGN

 

BOWIE-ALIGN is an accepted JWST program (GO 3838; PIs: Dr James Kirk and Dr Eva-Maria Ahrer) seeking to compare the compositions of aligned and misaligned hot Jupiters under the assumption that misaligned planets arrived at their current orbits through scattering while aligned planets likely underwent disk migration. The observational strategy and theoretical modelling are outlined in the two papers led by Dr. James Kirk and Dr. Anna Penzlin:

BOWIE-ALIGN: A JWST comparative survey of aligned versus misaligned hot Jupiters to test the dependence of atmospheric composition on migration history
Kirk, Ahrer, Penzlin, Owen, et al. (2024)
BOWIE-ALIGN: how formation and migration histories of giant planets impact atmospheric compositions
Penzlin, Booth, Kirk, Owen, et al. (2024)

The program is ongoing, with the results for the individual planets WASP-15b, TrES-4b, KELT-7b, HAT-P-30b and NGTS-2b already published:

BOWIE-ALIGN: JWST reveals hints of planetesimal accretion and complex sulphur chemistry in the atmosphere of the misaligned hot Jupiter WASP-15b
Kirk, Ahrer, Claringbold, Zamyatina, et al. (2025)
BOWIE-ALIGN: substellar metallicity and carbon depletion in the aligned TrES-4b with JWST NIRSpec transmission spectroscopy
Meech, Claringbold, Ahrer, Kirk, et al. (2025)
BOWIE-ALIGN: weak spectral features in KELT-7b's JWST NIRSpec/G395H transmission spectrum imply a high cloud deck or a low-metallicity atmosphere
Ahrer, Fairman, Kirk, Wakeford, et al. (2025)
BOWIE-ALIGN: Sub-solar C/O ratio and metallicity atmosphere of the misaligned hot Jupiter HAT-P-30 b
Claringbold, Fisher, Kirk, Ahrer, et al. (2026)
BOWIE-ALIGN: exploring degeneracies in the muted transmission spectrum of the aligned hot Jupiter NGTS-2b with NIRSpec/G395H
Fairman, Wakeford, Claringbold, Kirk, et al. (2026)
 

WASP-94 Ab

 

JWST program GO 3154 led by Dr. Eva-Maria Ahrer seeks to characterise WASP-94 Ab, a hot Jupiter in a retrograde orbit. The results are published here:

Tracing the formation and migration history: molecular signatures in the atmosphere of misaligned hot Jupiter WASP-94 A b using JWST NIRSpec/G395H
Ahrer, Gandhi, Alderson, Kirk, et al. (2025)