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Register a new userLooking for the rainbow on exoplanets covered by liquid and icy water clouds
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Looking for the primary rainbow in starlight that is reflected by exoplanets appears to be a promising method to search for liquid water clouds in exoplanetary atmospheres. Ice water clouds, that consist of water crystals instead of water droplets, could potentially mask the rainbow feature in the planetary signal by covering liquid water clouds. Here, we investigate the strength of the rainbow feature for exoplanets that have liquid and icy water clouds in their atmosphere, and calculate the rainbow feature for a realistic cloud coverage of Earth. We calculate flux and polarization signals of starlight that is reflected by horizontally and vertically inhomogeneous Earth--like exoplanets, covered by patchy clouds consisting of liquid water droplets or water ice crystals. The planetary surfaces are black. On a planet with a significant coverage of liquid water clouds only, the total flux signal shows a weak rainbow feature. Any coverage of the liquid water clouds by ice clouds, however, dampens the rainbow feature in the total flux, and thus the discovery of liquid water in the atmosphere. On the other hand, detecting the primary rainbow in the polarization signal of exoplanets appears to be a powerful tool for detecting liquid water in exoplanetary atmospheres, even when these clouds are partially covered by ice clouds. In particular, liquid water clouds covering as little as 10%-20% of the planetary surface, with more than half of these covered by ice clouds, still create a polarized rainbow feature in the planetary signal. Indeed, calculations of flux and polarization signals of an exoplanet with a realistic Earth--like cloud coverage, show a strong polarized rainbow feature.
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One significant difference between the atmospheres of stars and exoplanets is the presence of condensed particles (clouds or hazes) in the atmosphere of the latter. The main goal of this paper is to develop a self-consistent microphysical cloud model for 1D atmospheric codes, which can reproduce some observed properties of Earth, such as the average albedo, surface temperature, and global energy budget. The cloud model is designed to be computationally efficient, simple to implement, and applicable for a wide range of atmospheric parameters for planets in the habitable zone. We use a 1D, cloud-free, radiative-convective, and photochemical equilibrium code originally developed by Kasting, Pavlov, Segura, and collaborators as basis for our cloudy atmosphere model. The cloud model is based on models used by the meteorology community for Earths clouds. The free parameters of the model are the relative humidity and number density of condensation nuclei, and the precipitation efficiency. In a 1D model, the cloud coverage cannot be self-consistently determined, thus we treat it as a free parameter. We apply this model to Earth (aerosol number density 100 cm^-3, relative humidity 77 %, liquid cloud fraction 40 %, and ice cloud fraction 25 %) and find that a precipitation efficiency of 0.8 is needed to reproduce the albedo, average surface temperature and global energy budget of Earth. We perform simulations to determine how the albedo and the climate of a planet is influenced by the free parameters of the cloud model. We find that the planetary climate is most sensitive to changes in the liquid water cloud fraction and precipitation efficiency. The advantage of our cloud model is that the cloud height and the droplet sizes are self-consistently calculated, both of which influence the climate and albedo of exoplanets.
The formation of clouds affects brown dwarf and planetary atmospheres of nearly all effective temperatures. Iron and silicate condense in L dwarf atmospheres and dissipate at the L/T transition. Minor species such as sulfides and salts condense in mid-late T dwarfs. For brown dwarfs below Teff=450 K, water condenses in the upper atmosphere to form ice clouds. Currently over a dozen objects in this temperature range have been discovered, and few previous theoretical studies have addressed the effect of water clouds on brown dwarf or exoplanetary spectra. Here we present a new grid of models that include the effect of water cloud opacity. We find that they become optically thick in objects below Teff=350-375 K. Unlike refractory cloud materials, water ice particles are significantly non-gray absorbers; they predominantly scatter at optical wavelengths through J band and absorb in the infrared with prominent features, the strongest of which is at 2.8 microns. H2O, NH3, CH4, and H2 CIA are dominant opacity sources; less abundant species such as may also be detectable, including the alkalis, H2S, and PH3. PH3, which has been detected in Jupiter, is expected to have a strong signature in the mid-infrared at 4.3 microns in Y dwarfs around Teff=450 K; if disequilibrium chemistry increases the abundance of PH3, it may be detectable over a wider effective temperature range than models predict. We show results incorporating disequilibrium nitrogen and carbon chemistry and predict signatures of low gravity in planetary- mass objects. Lastly, we make predictions for the observability of Y dwarfs and planets with existing and future instruments including the James Webb Space Telescope and Gemini Planet Imager.
Data suggest that most rocky exoplanets with orbital period $p$ $<$ 100 d (hot rocky exoplanets) formed as gas-rich sub-Neptunes that subsequently lost most of their envelopes, but whether these rocky exoplanets still have atmospheres is unknown. We identify a pathway by which 1-1.7 $R_{Earth}$ (1-10 $M_{Earth}$) rocky exoplanets with orbital periods of 10-100 days can acquire long-lived 10-2000 bar atmospheres that are H$_2$O-dominated, with mean molecular weight $>$10. These atmospheres form during the planets evolution from sub-Neptunes into rocky exoplanets. H$_2$O that is made by reduction of iron oxides in the silicate magma is highly soluble in the magma, forming a dissolved reservoir that is protected from loss so long as the H$_2$-dominated atmosphere persists. The large size of the dissolved reservoir buffers the H$_2$O atmosphere against loss after the H$_2$ has dispersed. Within our model, a long-lived, water-dominated atmosphere is a common outcome for efficient interaction between a nebula-derived atmosphere (peak atmosphere mass fraction 0.1-0.6 wt%) and oxidized magma ($>$5 wt% FeO), followed by atmospheric loss. This idea predicts that most rocky planets that have orbital periods of 10-100 days and that have radii within 0.1-0.2 $R_{Earth}$ of the lower edge of the radius valley still retain H$_2$O atmospheres. This prediction is imminently testable with JWST and has implications for the interpretation of data for transiting super-Earths.
Water content and the internal evolution of terrestrial planets and icy bodies are closely linked. The distribution of water in planetary systems is controlled by the temperature structure in the protoplanetary disk and dynamics and migration of planetesimals and planetary embryos. This results in the formation of planetesimals and planetary embryos with a great variety of compositions, water contents and degrees of oxidation. The internal evolution and especially the formation time of planetesimals relative to the timescale of radiogenic heating by short-lived 26Al decay may govern the amount of hydrous silicates and leftover rock-ice mixtures available in the late stages of their evolution. In turn, water content may affect the early internal evolution of the planetesimals and in particular metal-silicate separation processes. Moreover, water content may contribute to an increase of oxygen fugacity and thus affect the concentrations of siderophile elements within the silicate reservoirs of Solar System objects. Finally, the water content strongly influences the differentiation rate of the icy moons, controls their internal evolution and governs the alteration processes occurring in their deep interiors.
We are on the verge of characterizing the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Due to their large planet-to-star radius ratios and higher frequency of transits, terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars are favorable for transmission spectroscopy. In this work, we quantify the effect that water clouds have on the amplitude of water vapor transmission spectral features of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars. To do so, we make synthetic transmission spectra from general circulation model (GCM) experiments of tidally locked planets. We improve upon previous work by considering how varying a broad range of planetary parameters affects transmission spectra. We find that clouds lead to a 10-100 times increase in the number of transits required to detect water features with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with varying rotation period, incident stellar flux, surface pressure, planetary radius, and surface gravity. We also find that there is a strong increase in the dayside cloud coverage in our GCM simulations with rotation periods $gtrsim 12 mathrm{days}$ for planets with Earths radius. This increase in cloud coverage leads to even stronger muting of spectral features for slowly rotating exoplanets orbiting M dwarf stars. We predict that it will be extremely challenging to detect water transmission features in the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone of M dwarf stars with JWST. However, species that are well-mixed above the cloud deck (e.g., CO$_2$ and CH$_4$) may still be detectable on these planets with JWST.
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