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The elemental compositions of hot Jupiters are informative relics of planetformation that can help us answer long-standing questions regarding the originand formation of giant planets. Here, I present the main conclusions from acomprehensive atmospheric retrieval survey of eight hot Jupiters withdetectable molecular absorption in their near-infrared transmission spectra. Ianalyze the eight transmission spectra using the newly-developed,self-consistent atmospheric retrieval framework, SCARLET. Unlike previousmethods, SCARLET combines the physical and chemical consistency of complexatmospheric models with the statistical treatment of observationaluncertainties known from atmospheric retrieval techniques. I find that alleight hot Jupiters consistently require carbon-to-oxygen ratios (C/O) below0.9. The finding of C/O<0.9 is highly robust for HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b,HAT-P-1b, and XO-1b. For HD189733b, WASP-17b, and WASP-43b, I find that thepublished WFC3 transmission spectra favor C/O<0.9 at greater than 95%confidence. I further show that the water abundances on all eight hot Jupitersare consistent with solar composition. The relatively small depth of thedetected water absorption features is due to the presence of clouds, not due toa low water abundance as previously suggested for HD209458b. The presence of athick cloud deck is inferred for HD209458b and WASP-12b. HD189733b may host asimilar cloud deck, rather than the previously suggested Rayleigh hazes, ifstar spots affect the observed spectrum. The approach taken in SCARLET can beregarded as a new pathway to interpreting spectral observations of planetaryatmospheres. In this work, including our prior knowledge of H-C-N-O chemistryenables me to constrain the C/O ratio without detecting a single carbon-bearingmolecule.

Strict Upper Limits on the Carbon-to-Oxygen Ratios of Eight Hot Jupiters from Self-Consistent Atmospheric Retrieval