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Register a new userDynamics and Disequilibrium Carbon Chemistry in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres, With Application to HD 209458b
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Chemical equilibrium considerations suggest that, assuming solar elemental abundances, carbon on HD 209458b is sequestered primarily as carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4). The relative mole fractions of CO(g) and CH4(g) in chemical equilibrium are expected to vary greatly according to variations in local temperature and pressure. We show, however, that in the p = 1--1000 mbar range, chemical equilibrium does not hold. To explore disequilibrium effects, we couple the chemical kinetics of CO and CH4 to a three-dimensional numerical model of HD 209458bs atmospheric circulation. These simulations show that vigorous dynamics caused by uneven heating of this tidally locked planet homogenize the CO and CH4 concentrations at p < 1 bar, even in the presence of lateral temperature variations of ~500--1000 K. In the 1--1000 mbar pressure range, we find that over 98% of the carbon is in CO. This is true even in cool regions where CH4 is much more stable thermodynamically. Our work shows furthermore that planets 300--500 K cooler than HD 209458b can also have abundant CO in their upper layers due to disequilibrium effects. We demonstrate several interesting observational consequences of these results.
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In this work we study the effect of disequilibrium processes on mixing ratio profiles of neutral species and on the simulated spectra of a hot Jupiter exoplanet that orbits stars of different spectral types. We also address the impact of stellar activity that should be present to a different degree in all stars with convective envelopes. We used the VULCAN chemical kinetic code to compute number densities of species. The temperature-pressure profile of the atmosphere was computed with the HELIOS code. We also utilized the $tau$-ReX forward model to predict the spectra of planets in primary and secondary eclipses. In order to account for the stellar activity we made use of the observed solar XUV spectrum taken from Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) as a proxy for an active sun-like star. We find large changes in mixing ratios of most chemical species in planets orbiting A-type stars that radiate strong XUV flux inducing a very effective photodissociation. For some species, these changes can propagate very deep into the planetary atmosphere to pressures of around 1 bar. To observe disequilibrium chemistry we favor hot Jupiters with temperatures Teq=1000 K and ultra-hot Jupiters with Teq=3000$ K that also have temperature inversion in their atmospheres. On the other hand, disequilibrium calculations predict little changes in spectra of planets with intermediate temperatures. We also show that stellar activity similar to the one of the modern Sun drives important changes in mixing ratio profiles of atmospheric species. However, these changes take place at very high atmospheric altitudes and thus do not affect predicted spectra. We estimate that the effect of disequilibrium chemistry in planets orbiting nearby bright stars could be robustly detected and studied with future missions with spectroscopic capabilities in infrared such as, e.g., JWST and ARIEL.
To study the complexity of hot Jupiter atmospheres revealed by observations of increasing quality, we have adapted the UK Met Office global circulation model (GCM), the Unified Model (UM), to these exoplanets. The UM solves the full 3D Navier-Stokes equations with a height-varying gravity, avoiding the simplifications used in most GCMs currently applied to exoplanets. In this work we present the coupling of the UM dynamical core to an accurate radiation scheme based on the two-stream approximation and correlated-k method with state-of-the-art opacities from ExoMol. Our first application of this model is devoted to the extensively studied hot Jupiter HD 209458b. We have derived synthetic emission spectra and phase curves, and compare them to both previous models also based on state-of-the-art radiative transfer, and to observations. We find a reasonable a agreement between observations and both our day side emission and hot spot offset, however, our night side emission is too large. Overall our results are qualitatively similar to those found by Showman et al. (2009) with the SPARC/MITgcm, however, we note several quantitative differences: Our simulations show significant variation in the position of the hottest part of the atmosphere with pressure, as expected from simple timescale arguments, and in contrast to the vertical coherency found by Showman et al. (2009). We also see significant quantitative differences in calculated synthetic observations. Our comparisons strengthen the need for detailed intercomparisons of dynamical cores, radiation schemes and post-processing tools to understand these differences. This effort is necessary in order to make robust conclusions about these atmospheres based on GCM results.
The absorption of stellar radiation observed by the HD209458b in resonant lines of OI and CII has not yet been satisfactorily modeled. In our previous 2D simulations we have shown that the hydrogen-dominated upper atmosphere of HD209458b, heated by XUV radiation, expands supersonically beyond the Roche lobe and drags the heavier species along with it. Assuming solar abundances, OI and CII particles accelerated by tidal forces to velocities up to 50 km/s should produce the absorption due to Doppler resonance mechanism at the level of 6-10%, consistent with the observations. Since the 2D geometry does not take into account the Coriolis force in the planet reference frame, the question remained to which extent the spiraling of the escaping planetary material and its actually achieved velocity may influence the conclusions made on the basis of 2D modeling. In the present paper we apply for the first time in the study of HD209458b a global 3D hydrodynamic multi-fluid model that self-consistently describes the formation and expansion of the escaping planetary wind, affected by the tidal and Coriolis forces, as well as by the surrounding stellar wind. The modeling results confirm our previous findings that the velocity and density of the planetary flow are sufficiently high to produce the absorption in HI, OI, and CII resonant lines at the level close to the in-transit observed values. The novel finding is that the matching of the absorption measured in MgII and SiIII lines requires at least 10 times lower abundances of these elements than the Solar system values.
The hot Jupiter HD 209458b is particularly amenable to detailed study as it is among the brightest transiting exoplanet systems currently known (V-mag = 7.65; K-mag = 6.308) and has a large planet-to-star contrast ratio. HD 209458b is predicted to be in synchronous rotation about its host star with a hot spot that is shifted eastward of the substellar point by superrotating equatorial winds. Here we present the first full-orbit observations of HD 209458b, in which its 4.5 $mu$m emission was recorded with $Spitzer$/IRAC. Our study revises the previous 4.5 $mu$m measurement of HD 209458bs secondary eclipse emission downward by $sim$35% to $0.1391%^{+0.0072%}_{-0.0069%}$, changing our interpretation of the properties of its dayside atmosphere. We find that the hot spot on the planets dayside is shifted eastward of the substellar point by $40.9^{circ}pm{6.0^{circ}}$, in agreement with circulation models predicting equatorial superrotation. HD 209458bs dayside (T$_{bright}$ = 1499 $pm$ 15 K) and nightside (T$_{bright}$ = 972 $pm$ 44 K) emission indicates a day-to-night brightness temperature contrast smaller than that observed for more highly irradiated exoplanets, suggesting that the day-to-night temperature contrast may be partially a function of the incident stellar radiation. The observed phase curve shape deviates modestly from global circulation model predictions potentially due to disequilibrium chemistry or deficiencies in the current hot CH$_{4}$ line lists used in these models. Observations of the phase curve at additional wavelengths are needed in order to determine the possible presence and spatial extent of a dayside temperature inversion, as well as to improve our overall understanding of this planets atmospheric circulation.
The measurement of the light scattered from extrasolar planets informs atmospheric and formation models. With the discovery of many hot Jupiter planets orbiting nearby stars, this motivates the development of robust methods of characterisation from follow up observations. In this paper we discuss two methods for determining the planetary albedo in transiting systems. First, the most widely used method for measuring the light scattered by hot Jupiters (Collier Cameron et al.) is investigated for application for typical echelle spectra of a transiting planet system, showing that detection requires high signal-to-noise ratio data of bright planets. Secondly a new Fourier analysis method is also presented, which is model-independent and utilises the benefits of the reduced number of unknown parameters in transiting systems. This approach involves solving for the planet and stellar spectra in Fourier space by least-squares. The sensitivities of the methods are determined via Monte Carlo simulations for a range of planet-to-star fluxes. We find the Fourier analysis method to be better suited to the ideal case of typical observations of a well constrained transiting system than the Collier Cameron et al. method. We apply the Fourier analysis method for extracting the light scattered by transiting hot Jupiters from high resolution spectra to echelle spectra of HD 209458 and HD 189733. Unfortunately we are unable to improve on the previous upper limit of the planet-to-star flux for HD 209458b set by space-based observations. A 1{sigma}upper limit on the planet-to-star flux of HD 189733b is measured in the wavelength range of 558.83-599.56 nm yielding {epsilon} < 4.5 times 10-4. Improvement in the measurement of the upper limit of the planet-to-star flux of this system, with ground-based capabilities, requires data with a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and increased stability of the telescope.
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