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Abstract:

Although there exists a large sample of known exoplanets, little data exists that can be used to study their global atmospheric properties. This deficiency can be addressed by performing phase-resolved spectroscopy — continuous spectroscopic observations of a planet’s entire orbit about its host star — of transiting exoplanets. Planets with characteristics suitable for atmospheric characterization have orbits of several days, thus phase curve observations are highly resource intensive, especially for shared use facilities. In this work, we show that an infrared spectrograph operating from a high altitude balloon platform can perform phase-resolved spectroscopy of hot Jupiter-type exoplanets with performance comparable to a space-based telescope. Using the EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE) experiment as an example, we quantify the impact of the most important systematic effects that we expect to encounter from a balloon platform. We show an instrument like EXCITE will have the stability and sensitivity to significantly advance our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. Such an instrument will both complement and serve as a critical bridge between current and future space-based near-infrared spectroscopic instruments.

Abstract:

On hot Jupiter exoplanets, strong horizontal and vertical winds should homogenize the abundances of the important absorbers CH4 and CO much faster than chemical reactions restore chemical equilibrium. This effect, typically neglected in general circulation models (GCMs), has been suggested to explain discrepancies between observed infrared light curves and those predicted by GCMs. On the nightsides of several hot Jupiters, GCMs predict outgoing fluxes that are too large, especially in the Spitzer 4.5 μm band. We modified the SPARC/MITgcm to include disequilibrium abundances of CH4, CO, and H2O by assuming that the CH4/CO ratio is constant throughout the simulation domain. We ran simulations of hot Jupiter HD 189733b with eight CH4/CO ratios. In the more likely CO-dominated regime, we find temperature changes ≥50–100 K compared to the simulation for equilibrium chemistry across large regions. This effect is large enough to affect predicted emission spectra and should thus be included in GCMs of hot Jupiters with equilibrium temperatures between 600 and 1300 K. We find that spectra in regions with strong methane absorption, including the Spitzer 3.6 and 8 μm bands, are strongly impacted by disequilibrium abundances. We expect chemical quenching to result in much larger nightside fluxes in the 3.6 μm band, in stark contrast to observations. Meanwhile, we find almost no effect on predicted observations in the 4.5 μm band, because the changes in opacity due to CO and H2O offset each other. We thus conclude that disequilibrium carbon chemistry cannot explain the observed low nightside fluxes in the 4.5 μm band.

Abstract:

Context. WASP-18b is an ultra-hot Jupiter with a temperature difference of up to 2500 K between day and night. Such giant planets begin to emerge as a planetary laboratory for understanding cloud formation and gas chemistry in well-tested parameter regimes in order to better understand planetary mass loss and for linking observed element ratios to planet formation and evolution. Aims. We aim to understand where clouds form, their interaction with the gas-phase chemistry through depletion and enrichment, the ionisation of the atmospheric gas, and the possible emergence of an ionosphere on ultra-hot Jupiters. Methods. We used 1D profiles from a 3D atmosphere simulation for WASP-18b as input for kinetic cloud formation and gas-phase chemical equilibrium calculations. We solved our kinetic cloud formation model for these 1D profiles, which sample the atmosphere of WASP-18b at 16 different locations along the equator and in the mid-latitudes. We derived the gas-phase composition consistently. Results. The dayside of WASP-18b emerges as completely cloud-free as a result of the very high atmospheric temperatures. In contrast, the nightside is covered in geometrically extended and chemically heterogeneous clouds with dispersed particle size distributions. The atmospheric C/O ratio increases to >0.7 and the enrichment of the atmospheric gas with cloud particles is ÒÏd/ÒÏgas > 10−3. The clouds that form at the limbs appear located farther inside the atmosphere, and they are the least extended. Not all day- to nightside terminator regions form clouds. The gas phase is dominated by H2, CO, SiO, H2O, H2S, CH4, and SiS. In addition, the dayside has a substantial degree of ionisation that is due to ions such as Na+, K+, Ca+, and Fe+. Al+ and Ti+ are the most abundant of their element classes. We find that WASP-18b, as one example for ultra-hot Jupiters, develops an ionosphere on the dayside.

Abstract:

We present the analysis of a full-orbit, spectroscopic phase curve of the ultra hot Jupiter (UHJ) WASP-18b, obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We measured the normalised day-night contrast of the planet as >0.96 in luminosity: the disc-integrated dayside emission from the planet is at 964 ± 25 ppm, corresponding to 2894 ± 30 K, and we place an upper limit on the nightside emission of <32 ppm or 1430 K at the 3σ level. We also find that the peak of the phase curve exhibits a small, but significant offset in brightness of 4.5 ± 0.5° eastward. We compare the extracted phase curve and phase-resolved spectra to 3D global circulation models and find that broadly the data can be well reproduced by some of these models. We find from this comparison several constraints on the atmospheric properties of the planet. Firstly we find that we need efficient drag to explain the very inefficient day-night recirculation observed. We demonstrate that this drag could be due to Lorentz-force drag by a magnetic field as weak as 10 gauss. Secondly, we show that a high metallicity is not required to match the large day-night temperature contrast. In fact, the effect of metallicity on the phase curve is different from cooler gas-giant counterparts because of the high-temperature chemistry in the atmosphere of WASP-18b. Additionally, we compared the current UHJ spectroscopic phase curves, WASP-18b and WASP-103b, and show that these two planets provide a consistent picture with remarkable similarities in their measured and inferred properties. However, key differences in these properties, such as their brightness offsets and radius anomalies, suggest that UHJ could be used to separate between competing theories for the inflation of gas-giant planets.

Abstract:

Phase curves are the best technique to probe the three-dimensional structure of exoplanets' atmospheres. In this chapter we first review current exoplanets' phase curve observations and the particular challenges they face. We then describe the different physical mechanisms shaping the atmospheric phase curves of highly irradiated tidally locked exoplanets. Finally, we discuss the potential for future missions to further advance our understanding of these new worlds.