Planetary Outflow Research Articles

Using Ly α transits to constrain models of atmospheric escape

ABSTRACT Ly $\alpha$ transits provide an opportunity to test models of atmospheric escape directly. However, translating observations into constraints on the properties of the escaping atmosphere is challenging. The major reason for this is that the observable parts of the outflow often comes from material outside the planet’s Hill sphere, where the interaction between the planetary outflow and circumstellar environment is important. As a result, 3D models are required to match observations. Whilst 3D hydrodynamic simulations are able to match observational features qualitatively, they are too computationally expensive to perform a statistical retrieval of properties of the outflow. Here, we develop a model that determines the trajectory, ionization state, and 3D geometry of the outflow as a function of its properties and system parameters. We then couple this model to a ray tracing routine in order to produce synthetic transits. We demonstrate the validity of this approach, reproducing the trajectory of the outflows seen in 3D simulations. We illustrate the use of this model by performing a retrieval on the transit spectrum of GJ 436 b. The bound on planetary outflow velocity and mass-loss rates are consistent with a photoevaporative wind.

Transmission Spectroscopy of the Lowest-density Gas Giant: Metals and a Potential Extended Outflow in HAT-P-67b

Extremely low-density exoplanets are tantalizing targets for atmospheric characterization because of their promisingly large signals in transmission spectroscopy. We present the first analysis of the atmosphere of the lowest-density gas giant currently known, HAT-P-67b. This inflated Saturn-mass exoplanet sits at the boundary between hot and ultrahot gas giants, where thermal dissociation of molecules begins to dominate atmospheric composition. We observed a transit of HAT-P-67b at high spectral resolution with CARMENES and searched for atomic and molecular species using cross-correlation and likelihood mapping. Furthermore, we explored potential atmospheric escape by targeting Hα and the metastable helium line. We detect Ca ii and Na i with significances of 13.2σ and 4.6σ, respectively. Unlike in several ultrahot Jupiters, we do not measure a day-to-night wind. The large line depths of Ca ii suggest that the upper atmosphere may be more ionized than models predict. We detect strong variability in Hα and the helium triplet during the observations. These signals suggest the possible presence of an extended planetary outflow that causes an early ingress and late egress. In the averaged transmission spectrum, we measure redshifted absorption at the ∼3.8% and ∼4.5% level in the Hα and He i triplet lines, respectively. From an isothermal Parker wind model, we derive a mass-loss rate of and an outflow temperature of T ∼ 9900 K. However, due to the lack of a longer out-of-transit baseline in our data, additional observations are needed to rule out stellar variability as the source of the Hα and He signals.

The fundamentals of Lyman α exoplanet transits

ABSTRACT Lyman α transits have been detected from several nearby exoplanets and are one of our best insights into the atmospheric escape process. However, due to ISM absorption, we typically only observe the transit signature in the blue-wing, making them challenging to interpret. This challenge has been recently highlighted by non-detections from planets thought to be undergoing vigorous escape. Pioneering 3D simulations have shown that escaping hydrogen is shaped into a cometary tail receding from the planet. Motivated by this work, we develop a simple model to interpret Lyman α transits. Using this framework, we show that the Lyman α transit depth is primarily controlled by the properties of the stellar tidal field rather than details of the escape process. Instead, the transit duration provides a direct measurement of the velocity of the planetary outflow. This result arises because the underlying physics is the distance a neutral hydrogen atom can travel before it is photoionized in the outflow. Thus, higher irradiation levels, expected to drive more powerful outflows, produce weaker, shorter Lyman α transits because the outflowing gas is ionized more quickly. Our framework suggests that the generation of energetic neutral atoms may dominate the transit signature early, but the acceleration of planetary material produces long tails. Thus, Lyman α transits do not primarily probe the mass-loss rates. Instead, they inform us about the velocity at which the escape mechanism is ejecting material from the planet, providing a clean test of predictions from atmospheric escape models.

Stellar wind effect on the atmospheric escape of hot Jupiters and their Ly α and H α transits

ABSTRACT Atmospheric escape of close-in exoplanets can be driven by high-energy radiation from the host star. The planetary outflows interacting with the stellar wind may generate observable transit signals that depend on the strength of the stellar wind. We perform detailed radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the atmospheric escape of hot Jupiters with including the wind from the host star in a self-consistent, dynamically coupled manner. We show that the planetary outflow is shaped by the balance between its thermal pressure and the ram pressure of the stellar wind. We use the simulation outputs to calculate the Lyman α and H α transit signatures. Strong winds can confine the outflow and decrease the Lyman α transit depth. Contrastingly, the wind effect on H α is weak because of the small contribution from the uppermost atmosphere of the planet. Observing both of the lines is important to understand the effect of the ultraviolet radiation and wind from the host. The atmospheric mass-loss rate is approximately independent of the strength of the wind. We also discuss the effect of the coronal mass ejections on the signatures. We argue that around M dwarfs the effect can be significant in every transit.

Stellar Wind Confinement of Evaporating Exoplanet Atmospheres and Its Signatures in 1083 nm Observations

Abstract Atmospheric escape from close-in exoplanets is thought to be crucial in shaping observed planetary populations. Recently, significant progress has been made in observing this process in action through excess absorption in-transit spectra and narrowband light curves. We model the escape of initially homogeneous planetary winds interacting with a stellar wind. The ram pressure balance of the two winds governs this interaction. When the impingement of the stellar wind on the planetary outflow is mild or moderate, the planetary outflow expands nearly spherically through its sonic surface before forming a shocked boundary layer. When the confinement is strong, the planetary outflow is redirected into a cometary tail before it expands to its sonic radius. The resultant transmission spectra at the He 1083 nm line are accurately represented by a 1D spherical wind solution in cases of mild to moderate stellar wind interaction. In cases of strong stellar wind interaction, the degree of absorption is enhanced and the cometary tail leads to an extended egress from transit. The crucial features of the wind–wind interaction are, therefore, encapsulated in the light curve of He 1083 nm equivalent width as a function of time. The possibility of extended He 1083 nm absorption well beyond the optical transit carries important implications for planning out-of-transit observations that serve as a baseline for in-transit data.

Observations of planetary winds and outflows

AbstractWe have recently hit the milestone of 5,000 exoplanets discovered. In stark contrast with the Solar System, most of the exoplanets we know to date orbit extremely close to their host stars, causing them to lose copious amounts of gas through atmospheric escape at some stage in their lives. In some planets, this process can be so dramatic that they shrink in timescales of a few million to billions of years, imprinting features in the demographics of transiting exoplanets. Depending on the transit geometry, ionizing conditions, and atmospheric properties, a planetary outflow can be observed using transmission spectroscopy in the ultraviolet, optical or near-infrared. In this review, we will discuss the main techniques to observe evaporating exoplanets and their results. To date, we have evidence that at least 28 exoplanets are currently losing their atmospheres, and the literature has reported at least 42 non-detections.

Effects of the stellar wind on the Ly α transit of close-in planets

ABSTRACT We use 3D hydrodynamics simulations followed by synthetic line profile calculations to examine the effect increasing the strength of the stellar wind has on observed Ly α transits of a hot Jupiter (HJ) and a warm Neptune (WN). We find that increasing the stellar wind mass-loss rate from 0 (no wind) to 100 times the solar mass-loss rate value causes reduced atmospheric escape in both planets (a reduction of 65 per cent and 40 per cent for the HJ and WN, respectively, compared to the ‘no wind’ case). For weaker stellar winds (lower ram pressure), the reduction in planetary escape rate is very small. However, as the stellar wind becomes stronger, the interaction happens deeper in the planetary atmosphere, and, once this interaction occurs below the sonic surface of the planetary outflow, further reduction in evaporation rates is seen. We classify these regimes in terms of the geometry of the planetary sonic surface. ‘Closed’ refers to scenarios where the sonic surface is undisturbed, while ‘open’ refers to those where the surface is disrupted. We find that the change in stellar wind strength affects the Ly α transit in a non-linear way (note that here we do not include charge-exchange processes). Although little change is seen in planetary escape rates (≃ 5.5 × 1011 g s−1) in the closed to partially open regimes, the Ly α absorption (sum of the blue [−300, −40 km s−1] and red [40, 300 km s−1] wings) changes from 21 to 6 per cent as the stellar wind mass-loss rate is increased in the HJ set of simulations. For the WN simulations, escape rates of ≃ 6.5 × 1010 g s−1 can cause transit absorptions that vary from 8.8 to 3.7 per cent, depending on the stellar wind strength. We conclude that the same atmospheric escape rate can produce a range of absorptions depending on the stellar wind and that neglecting this in the interpretation of Ly α transits can lead to underestimation of planetary escape rates.

Stellar activity effects on the atmospheric escape of hot Jupiters

AbstractTransit observations have revealed the existence of atmospheric escape in several hot Jupiters. High energy photons from the host star heat the upper atmosphere and drive the hydrodynamic escape. The escaping atmosphere can interact with the stellar wind from the host star. We run radiation hydrodynamics simulations with non-equilibrium chemistry to investigate the wind effects on the escape and the transit signature. Our simulations follow the planetary outflow driven by the photoionization heating and the wind interaction in a dynamically coupled, self-consistent manner. We show that the planetary mass-loss rate is almost independent of the wind strength, which however affects the Ly-α transit depth considerably. But the Hα transit depth is almost independent of the wind strength because it is largely caused by the lower hot layer. We argue that observations of both lines can solve the degeneracy between the EUV flux from the host and the wind strength.

Morphology of Hydrodynamic Winds: A Study of Planetary Winds in Stellar Environments

Abstract Bathed in intense ionizing radiation, close-in gaseous planets undergo hydrodynamic atmospheric escape, which ejects the upper extent of their atmospheres into the interplanetary medium. Ultraviolet detections of escaping gas around transiting planets corroborate such a framework. Exposed to the stellar environment, the outflow is shaped by its interaction with the stellar wind and by the planet’s orbit. We model these effects using Athena to perform 3D radiative-hydrodynamic simulations of tidally locked hydrogen atmospheres receiving large amounts of ionizing extreme-ultraviolet flux in various stellar environments for the low-magnetic-field case. Through a step-by-step exploration of orbital and stellar wind effects on the planetary outflow, we find three structurally distinct stellar wind regimes: weak, intermediate, and strong. We perform synthetic Lyα observations and find unique observational signatures for each regime. A weak stellar wind—which cannot confine the planetary outflow, leading to a torus of material around the star—has a pretransit, redshifted dayside arm and a slightly redward-skewed spectrum during transit. The intermediate regime truncates the dayside outflow at large distances from the planet and causes periodic disruptions of the outflow, producing observational signatures that mimic a double transit. The first of these dips is blueshifted and precedes the optical transit. Finally, strong stellar winds completely confine the outflow into a cometary tail and accelerate the outflow outward, producing large blueshifted signals posttransit. Across all three regimes, large signals occur far outside of transit, offering motivation to continue ultraviolet observations outside of direct transit.

Hot Jupiter accretion: 3D MHD simulations of star–planet–wind interaction

We present 3D MHD simulations of the wind-wind interactions between a solar type star and a short period hot Jupiter exoplanet. This is the first such simulation in which the stellar surface evolution is studied in detail. In our simulations, a planetary outflow, based on models of FUV evaporation of the exoplanets upper atmosphere, results in the build-up of circumstellar and circumplanetary material which accretes onto the stellar surface in a form of coronal rain, in which the rain is HJ wind material falling onto the stellar surface. We have conducted a suite of mixed geometry high resolution simulations which characterise the behaviour of interacting stellar and planetary wind material for a representative HJ hosting system. Our results show that magnetic topology plays a central role in forming accretion streams between the star and HJ and that the nature of the accretion is variable both in location and in rate, with the final accretion point occurring at $\phi~=~227^{\circ}$ ahead of the sub-planetary point and $\theta~=~53^{\circ}$ below the orbital plain. The size of the accretion spot itself has been found to vary with a period of $67 \ \mathrm{ks}$. Within the accretion spot, there is a small decrease in temperature accompanied by an increase in density compared with ambient surface conditions. We also demonstrate that magnetic fields cannot be ignored as accretion is highly dependent upon the magnetic topology of both the HJ and the host. We characterise this behaviour as Star Planet Wind Interaction (SPWI)

3D Aeronomy modelling of close-in exoplanets

We present a 3D fully selfconsistent multi-fluid hydrodynamic aeronomy model to study the structure of a hydrogen dominated expanding upper atmosphere around the hot Jupiter HD 209458b and the warm Neptune GJ 436b. In comparison to previous studies with 1D and 2D models, the present work finds such 3D features as zonal flows in upper atmosphere reaching up to 1 km/s, the tilting of the planetary outflow by Coriolis force by up to 45 degrees and its compression around equatorial plane by tidal forces. We also investigated in details the influence of Helium (He) on the structure of the thermosphere. It is found that by decrease of the barometric scale-height, the He presence in the atmosphere strongly affects the H2 dissociation front and the temperature maximum.

Interacting fields and flows: Magnetic hot Jupiters

We present magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the magnetic interactions between a solar‐type star and short‐period hot Jupiter exoplanets using the publicly available MHD code PLUTO. It has been predicted that emission due to magnetic interactions such as the electron cyclotron maser instability (ECMI) will be observable. In our simulations, a planetary outflow, due to UV evaporation of the exoplanets atmosphere, results in the build‐up of circumplanetary material. We predict the ECMI emission and determine that the emission is prevented from escaping the system. This is due to the evaporated material leading to a high plasma frequency in the vicinity of the planet, which inhibits the ECMI process.

An evaporating planet in the wind: stellar wind interactions with the radiatively braked exosphere of GJ 436 b

The warm Neptune GJ436b was observed with HST/STIS at three different epochs in the stellar Ly-alpha line, showing deep, repeated transits caused by a giant exosphere of neutral hydrogen. The low radiation pressure from the M-dwarf host star was shown to play a major role in the dynamics of the escaping gas. Yet by itself it cannot explain the time-variable spectral features detected in each transit. Here we investigate the combined role of radiative braking and stellar wind interactions using numerical simulations with the EVaporating Exoplanet code (EVE) and we derive atmospheric and stellar properties through the direct comparison of simulated and observed spectra. Our simulations match the last two epochs well. The observed sharp early ingresses come from the abrasion of the planetary coma by the stellar wind. Spectra observed during the transit can be produced by a dual exosphere of planetary neutrals (escaped from the upper atmosphere of the planet) and neutralized protons (created by charge-exchange with the stellar wind). We find similar properties at both epochs for the planetary escape rate (2.5x10$^{8}$ g/s), the stellar photoionization rate (2x10$^{-5}$ /s), the stellar wind bulk velocity (85 km/s), and its kinetic dispersion velocity (10 km/s). We find high velocities for the escaping gas (50-60 km/s) that may indicate MHD waves that dissipate in the upper atmosphere and drive the planetary outflow. In the last epoch the high density of the stellar wind (3x10$^{3}$ /cm3) led to the formation of an exospheric tail mainly composed of neutralized protons. The observations of GJ436 b allow for the first time to clearly separate the contributions of radiation pressure and stellar wind and to probe the regions of the exosphere shaped by each mechanism.

Optical hydrogen absorption consistent with a bow shock around the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b

AbstractHot Jupiters, i.e., Jupiter-mass planets with orbital semi major axes of <10 stellar radii, can interact strongly with their host stars. If the planet is moving supersonically through the stellar wind, a bow shock will form ahead of the planet where the planetary magnetosphere slams into the the stellar wind or where the planetary outflow and stellar wind meet. Here we present high resolution spectra of the hydrogen Balmer lines for a single transit of the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b. Transmission spectra of the Balmer lines show strong absorption ~70 minutes before the predicted optical transit, implying a significant column density of excited hydrogen orbiting ahead of the planet. We show that a simple geometric bow shock model is able to reproduce the important features of the absorption time series while simultaneously matching the line profile morphology. Our model suggests a large planetary magnetic field strength of ~28 G. Follow-up observations are needed to confirm the pre-transit signal and investigate any variability in the measurement.

Classification of magnetized star–planet interactions: bow shocks, tails, and inspiraling flows

Close-in exoplanets interact with their host stars gravitationally as well as via their magnetized plasma outflows. The rich dynamics that arises may result in distinct observable features. Our objective is to study and classify the morphology of the different types of interaction that can take place between a giant close-in planet (a Hot Jupiter) and its host star, based on the physical parameters that characterize the system. We perform 3D magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations to model the star--planet interaction, incorporating a star, a Hot Jupiter, and realistic stellar and planetary outflows. We explore a wide range of parameters and analyze the flow structures and magnetic topologies that develop. Our study suggests the classification of star--planet interactions into four general types, based on the relative magnitudes of three characteristic length scales that quantify the effects of the planetary magnetic field, the planetary outflow, and the stellar gravitational field in the interaction region. We describe the dynamics of these interactions and the flow structures that they give rise to, which include bow shocks, cometary-type tails, and inspiraling accretion streams. We point out the distinguishing features of each of the classified cases and discuss some of their observationally relevant properties. The magnetized interactions of star--planet systems can be categorized, and their general morphologies predicted, based on a set of basic stellar, planetary, and orbital parameters.