For the forth paper of my #MonthOfArXiv (catching up from yesterday again), I chose a paper studying the upper atmospheres of a couplet of planets.

The title of the paper is “Characterisation of the upper atmospheres of HAT-P-32 b, WASP-69 b, GJ 1214 b, and WASP-76 b through their He I triplet absorption” and was written by Lampón and collaborators.

Let’s dive right into it! 👇🏼🧵

🔗 https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03839

#challenge #PaperThread

Characterisation of the upper atmospheres of HAT-P-32 b, WASP-69 b, GJ 1214 b, and WASP-76 b through their He I triplet absorption

Characterisation of atmospheres undergoing photo-evaporation is key to understanding the formation, evolution, and diversity of planets. However, only a few upper atmospheres that experience this kind of hydrodynamic escape have been characterised. Our aim is to characterise the upper atmospheres of the hot Jupiters HAT-P-32 b and WASP-69 b, the warm sub-Neptune GJ 1214 b, and the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b through high-resolution observations of their HeI triplet absorption. In addition, we also reanalyse the warm Neptune GJ 3470 b and the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b. We used a spherically symmetric 1D hydrodynamic model coupled with a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium model. Comparing synthetic absorption spectra with observations, we constrained the main parameters of the upper atmosphere of these planets and classify them according to their hydrodynamic regime. Our results show that HAT-P-32 b photo-evaporates at (130$\pm$70)$\times$10$^{11}$ gs$^{-1}$ with a hot (12 400$\pm$2900 K) upper atmosphere; WASP-69 b loses its atmosphere at (0.9$\pm$0.5)$\times$10$^{11}$ gs$^{-1}$ and 5250$\pm$750 K; and GJ 1214 b, with a relatively cold outflow of 3750$\pm$750 K, photo-evaporates at (1.3$\pm$1.1)$\times$10$^{11}$ gs$^{-1}$. For WASP-76 b, its weak absorption prevents us from constraining its temperature and mass-loss rate significantly; we obtained ranges of 6000-17 000\,K and 23.5$\pm$21.5$\times$10$^{11}$ gs$^{-1}$. Our reanalysis of GJ 3470 b yields colder temperatures, 3400$\pm$350 K, but practically the same mass-loss rate as in our previous results. Our reanalysis of HD 189733 b yields a slightly higher mass-loss rate, (1.4$\pm$0.5)$\times$10$^{11}$ gs$^{-1}$, and temperature, 12 700$\pm$900 K compared to previous estimates. Our results support that photo-evaporated outflows tend to be very light.

arXiv.org
The key ingredient of this paper are the metastable He I lines (a He I triplet in the near-IR) that allow the study of hydrodynamic atmospheric escape, or more specifically, photoevaporation due to stellar irradiation. This He I triplet is an indication of an extended atmosphere and is one of the drivers in the study of photoevaporation.

In this paper, the authors analyse the metastable He I lines (obtained with the CARMENES spectrograph) of four exoplanets in order to characterise their upper atmospheres.

But what is this hydrodynamic atmospheric escape exactly?

I am no expert in it (nope, absolutely not), but one thing I learned reading this paper is that one can distinguish three different regimes:

1. energy-limited,
2. recombination-limited, and
3. photon-limited

Erm, sorry, what?

The recombination-limited regime seems to be the easiest to grasp (at least for me). In this case, the production of neutral hydrogen is dominated by recombination (electron captured by a proton) and advection (transport through wind in the atmosphere) is negligible. In this regime, the ionisation front (the transition between mostly neutral to ionised atmosphere) is nicely confined and restricted to a narrow region. Further, the heating efficiency is low because radiative cooling is important.
Now it gets a bit tricky: In the photon-limited regime, it is advection that is dominating the production of neutral hydrogen, which means the ionisation front is not really well-confined. I imagine this as a windy chaos where the components of the atmosphere (ionised or neutral) get swirled around in the upper atmosphere. Radiative cooling is here negligible or moderate, meaning that the heat efficiency is relatively high (and constant w.r.t. the mass-loss rate).
In contrast, in the energy-limited regime advection and recombination play an important role. So the ionisation front is wide, but not extended over the whole upper atmosphere. The heating efficiency is also rather high, but not constant with respect to the mass-loss rate.
So for us to be able to put planets into their respective regime-boxes (see we like boxes/drawers), we need to determine a few parameters: the mass-loss rate, the temperature of the upper atmosphere, the ratio between H and He and the ionisation profile. (The H/He ratio requires additional study of the e.g. Lyalpha lines).

With this knowledge about the three regimes, we can look at the results the authors get. By modelling the atmospheres of their target planets for different scenarios (I won’t discuss the models because they are quite complicated. If you are interested, I recommend reading the paper), they deduce the best fit for these planetary parameters and compare to some other well-studied planets.

Table 3 of Lampón+2023

Let’s talk results. Using the best-fit models, the authors compare the mass-loss rates vs. temperature and mass-loss rate vs. XUV flux from the host star. They find that two planets (WASP-76 b and HAT-P-32 b) have a high mass-loss rate, likely caused by the high XUV irradiation. WASP-69 b and HD 189733 b also seem to be evaporating at a high mass-loss rate, but not as high as the two aforementioned planets.

Fig. 12&13 of Lampón+2023

The other three planets are in need of a different explanation: Their XUV flux is rather low in comparison to the other planets, but still, their mass-loss rates are comparable to WASP-69 b and HD 189733 b. How so?

For GJ 3470 b and GJ 1214, the gravitational potential seems to be the explanation for their high evaporation rates. But what about HD 209458 b? The reason seems to be the large absorption radius (R_XUV) for this planet making it very efficient in the absorption of stellar irradiation.

The other parameter up for discussion (and needed for the categorising) is the heating efficiency.

Fig. 14&15 of Lampón+2023

With the determination of that value, we are ready for the main conclusion!

They generally confirm that highly irradiated planets are in the recombination-limited regime, while planets with low irradiation are in the energy-limited regime, in the case of deep gravitational potential, and in the photon-limited regime for shallow gravitational potentials.

… and this was it! If this is your cup of tea, I recommend reading the paper. There is a lot more info in there. Hope you enjoyed it! 😊