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We calculated hydrogen recombination line luminosities (H-$alpha$, Paschen-$beta$ and Brackett-$gamma$) from three dimensional thermo-hydrodynamical simulations of forming planets from 1 to 10 Jupiter-masses. We explored various opacities to estimate the line emissions with extinction in each cases assuming boundary layer accretion. When realistic opacities are considered, only lines from planets $ge$10 Jupiter-mass can be detected with current instrumentation, highlighting that from most planets one cannot expect detectable emission. This might explain the very low detection rate of H-$alpha$ from forming planets from observations. While the line emission comes from both the forming planet and its circumplanetary disk, we found that only the disk component could be detected due to extinction. We examined the line variability as well, and found that it is higher for higher mass planets. Furthermore, we determine for the first time, the parametric relationship between the mass of the planet and the luminosity of the hydrogen recombination lines, as well as the equation between the accretion luminosity and hydrogen recombination line luminosities.
Potential signatures of proto-planets embedded in their natal protoplanetary disk are radial gaps or cavities in the continuum emission in the IR-mm wavelength range. ALMA observations are now probing spatially resolved rotational line emission of CO and other chemical species. These observations can provide complementary information on the mechanism carving the gaps in dust and additional constraints on the purported planet mass. We post-process 2D hydrodynamical simulations of planet-disk models, where the dust densities and grain size distributions are computed with a dust evolution code. The simulations explore different planet masses ($1,M_{rm J}leq M_{rm p}leq15,M_{rm J}$) and turbulent parameters. The outputs are post-processed with the thermo-chemical code DALI, accounting for the radially and vertically varying dust properties as in Facchini et al. (2017). We obtain the gas and dust temperature structures, chemical abundances, and synthetic emission maps of both thermal continuum and CO rotational lines. This is the first study combining hydro simulations, dust evolution and chemistry to predict gas emission of disks hosting massive planets. All radial intensity profiles of the CO main isotopologues show a gap at the planet location. The ratio between the location of the gap as seen in CO and the peak in the mm continuum at the pressure maximum outside the orbit of the planet shows a clear dependence on planet mass. Due to the low dust density in the gaps, the dust and gas components can become thermally decoupled, with the gas being colder than the dust. The gaps seen in CO are due to a combination of gas temperature dropping at the location of the planet, and of the underlying surface density profile. In none of the models is a CO cavity observed, only CO gaps, indicating that one single massive planet is not able to explain the CO cavities observed in transition disks.
Uranus and Neptune are the last unexplored planets of the Solar System. I show that they hold crucial keys to understand the atmospheric dynamics and structure of planets with hydrogen atmospheres. Their atmospheres are active and storms are believed to be fueled by methane condensation which is both extremely abundant and occurs at low optical depth. This means that mapping temperature and methane abundance as a function of position and depth will inform us on how convection organizes in an atmosphere with no surface and condensates that are heavier than the surrounding air, a general feature of gas giants. Using this information will be essential to constrain the interior structure of Uranus and Neptune themselves, but also of Jupiter, Saturn and numerous exoplanets with hydrogen atmospheres. Owing to the spatial and temporal variability of these atmospheres, an orbiter is required. A probe would provide a reference profile to lift ambiguities inherent to remote observations. It would also measure abundances of noble gases which can be used to reconstruct the history of planet formation in the Solar System. Finally, mapping the planets gravity and magnetic fields will be essential to constrain their global composition, structure and evolution.
The Teff = 20,800 K white dwarf WD 1536+520 is shown to have broadly solar abundances of the major rock forming elements O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Fe, together with a strong relative depletion in the volatile elements C and S. In addition to the highest metal abundances observed to date, including log(O/He) = -3.4, the helium-dominated atmosphere has an exceptional hydrogen abundance at log(H/He) = -1.7. Within the uncertainties, the metal-to-metal ratios are consistent with the accretion of an H2O-rich and rocky parent body, an interpretation supported by the anomalously high trace hydrogen. The mixed atmosphere yields unusually short diffusion timescales for a helium atmosphere white dwarf, of no more than a few hundred yr, and equivalent to those in a much cooler, hydrogen-rich star. The overall heavy element abundances of the disrupted parent body deviate modestly from a bulk Earth pattern, and suggest the deposition of some core-like material. The total inferred accretion rate is 4.2e9 g/s, and at least 4 times higher than any white dwarf with a comparable diffusion timescale. Notably, when accretion is exhausted in this system, both metals and hydrogen will become undetectable within roughly 300 Myr, thus supporting a scenario where the trace hydrogen is related to the ongoing accretion of planetary debris.
We conducted systematic observations of the H I Br$alpha$ (4.05 $mu$m) and Br$beta$ (2.63 $mu$m) lines in 52 nearby ($z<0.3$) ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) with AKARI. Among 33 ULIRGs wherein the lines are detected, three galaxies show anomalous Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratios ($sim1.0$), which are significantly higher than those for case B (0.565). Our observations also show that ULIRGs have a tendency to exhibit higher Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratios than those observed in Galactic H II regions. The high Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratios cannot be explained by a combination of dust extinction and case B since dust extinction reduces the ratio. We explore possible causes for the high Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratios and show that the observed ratios can be explained by a combination of an optically thick Br$alpha$ line and an optically thin Br$beta$ line. We simulated the H II regions in ULIRGs with the Cloudy code, and our results show that the high Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratios can be explained by high-density conditions, wherein the Br$alpha$ line becomes optically thick. To achieve a column density large enough to make the Br$alpha$ line optically thick within a single H II region, the gas density must be as high as $nsim10^8$ $mathrm{cm}^{-3}$. We therefore propose an ensemble of H II regions, in each of which the Br$alpha$ line is optically thick, to explain the high Br$beta$/Br$alpha$ line ratio.
The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectra of distant star-forming regions cannot be probed directly using either ground- or space-based telescopes due to the high cross-section for interaction of EUV photons with the interstellar medium. This makes EUV spectra poorly constrained. The mm/submm recombination lines of H and He, which can be observed from the ground, can serve as a reliable probe of the EUV. Here we present a study based on ALMA observations of three Galactic ultra-compact HII regions and the starburst region Sgr B2(M), in which we reconstruct the key parameters of the EUV spectra using mm recombination lines of HI, HeI and HeII. We find that in all cases the EUV spectra between 13.6 and 54.4 eV have similar frequency dependence: L_{ u}~ u^{-4.5 +/- 0.4}. We compare the inferred values of the EUV spectral slopes with the values expected for a purely single stellar evolution model (Starburst99) and the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis code (BPASS). We find that the observed spectral slope differs from the model predictions. This may imply that the fraction of interacting binaries in HII regions is substantially lower than assumed in BPASS. The technique demonstrated here allows one to deduce the EUV spectra of star forming regions providing critical insight into photon production rates at lambda < 912 A and can serve as calibration to starburst synthesis models, improving our understanding of star formation in distant universe and the properties of ionizing flux during reionization.