Temporal variability in transmission spectra of H2-dominated exoplanets: The influence of thermal evolution and stellar irradiation on atmospheric composition

Abstract

Planets and their host stars undergo evolutionary changes over time, resulting in variations in internal temperature and incoming radiation, which significantly impact the temperature structure and composition of their atmospheres. These evolving conditions give rise to distinctive features in planetary spectra that are observable only during specific stages of planetary evolution. We aim to understand how the composition of planets with H2-dominated atmospheres changes over longer timescales due to their thermal evolution. We also investigate time-dependent features in the transmission spectra. These features could provide insights in both the formation and evolution of these gaseous planets, as well as the timescales of these changes, enabling us to study the potential variability of exoplanets over time. We evolve a ∼0.04 MJup and ∼0.45 MJup planet around a 1.0 M⊙ and 1.3 M⊙ star respectively for 109.5 years. In both systems, the planets are considered at semi-major axes of 0.1 AU and 1.0 AU. The star-planet systems are evolved by making use of Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). The temperature–pressure profiles are obtained at selected time-steps using an analytical approximation based on the internal and irradiation temperature of the planet at each time step. We then use VULCAN, a photochemical kinetics code, to see how the composition changes with time in the atmosphere due to the thermal evolution of the planets. By making use of the radiative transfer code petitRADTrans, we also simulate the evolution of the transmission spectra of the planets to find potential time-dependent spectral features. Our findings show a prominent change in the CO2 feature at ∼4.3μm. For the 0.45 MJup case, this feature is visible in the pre-main-sequence phase of the host star, regardless of orbital distance from the host star. In the case of the ∼0.04 MJup planet, this CO2 feature is visible until t ≤ 106 years, and then it reappears after t ≥ 108 years when the planet is 0.1 AU away the host star. The CH4 features at ∼3.3μm and ∼7.5μm are only time-dependent when the planet is located at 0.1 AU from the host star and experiences high irradiation since the high temperature at early stages favoured CO2 over CH4. When the planet is 1.0 AU away from its host star, the CH4 features are always visible regardless of the mass and hence internal temperature of the planet.