THE IMPRINT OF EXOPLANET FORMATION HISTORY ON OBSERVABLE PRESENT-DAY SPECTRA OF HOT JUPITERS

By C. Mordasini, R. van Boekel, Paul Mollière, Th. Henning, Björn Benneke. 2016

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The composition of a planet’s atmosphere is determined by its formation, evolution, and present-day insolation. A planet’s spectrum therefore may hold clues on its origins. We present a “chain” of models, linking the formation of a planet to its observable present-day spectrum. The chain links include (1) the planet’s formation and migration, (2) its long-term thermodynamic evolution, (3) a variety of disk chemistry models, (4) a non-gray atmospheric model, and (5) a radiometric model to obtain simulated spectroscopic observations with James Webb Space Telescope and ARIEL. In our standard chemistry model the inner disk is depleted in refractory carbon as in the Solar System and in white dwarfs polluted by extrasolar planetesimals. Our main findings are: (1) envelope enrichment by planetesimal impacts during formation dominates the final planetary atmospheric composition of hot Jupiters. We investigate two, under this finding, prototypical formation pathways: a formation inside or outside the water iceline, called “dry” and “wet” planets, respectively. (2) Both the “dry” and “wet” planets are oxygen-rich (C/O < 1) due to the oxygen-rich nature of the solid building blocks. The “dry” planet’s C/O ratio is <0.2 for standard carbon depletion, while the “wet” planet has typical C/O values between 0.1 and 0.5 depending mainly on the clathrate formation efficiency. Only non-standard disk chemistries without carbon depletion lead to carbon-rich C/O ratios >1 for the “dry” planet. (3) While we consistently find C/O ratios <1, they still vary significantly. To link a formation history to a specific C/O, a better understanding of the disk chemistry is thus needed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/58d67df3f83c1fc442590fa7b06d9f3d0e594dc8

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. N. Madhusudhan
2. Jon Fortney
3. M. Line
4. V. Parmentier
5. A. Showman
6. Laura Kreidberg
7. J. D'esert
8. C. Mordasini

Citations in the corpus

• Retrieving scattering clouds and disequilibrium chemistry in the atmosphere of HR 8799e (2020, methodology): “Measuring a planet’s C/O has been suggested as a powerful tool to trace where in the protoplanetary disk a planet may have formed (e.g., Öberg et al. 2011; Madhusudhan et al. 2014b; Mordasini et al. 2016; Cridland et al. 2016).”
• Global Climate and Atmospheric Composition of the Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-103b from HST and Spitzer Phase Curve Observations (2018, background): “Planets near WASP-103b’s mass (1.5MJup) are expected to have metallicities ranging from roughly 1 − 10× solar (Fortney et al. 2013; Mordasini et al. 2016).”
• Exoplanetary Atmospheres: Key Insights, Challenges, and Prospects (2019, methodology): “nce models used from (164): the case 1 and 2 equilibrium models are shown in blue and orange, and the case 2 no-reactions model in green. The purple stars show the models of Jupiter mass planets from (184), while the models of (57) are given by the red star. the disk (207, 31). Inward drifting pebbl”
• HD 209458b in new light: evidence of nitrogen chemistry, patchy clouds and sub-solar water (2017, background): “Such constraints are just beginning to provide tantalising clues to planetary formation and migration pathways (e.g. Öberg et al. 2011; Madhusudhan et al. 2014c; Mordasini et al. 2016).”
• Compositional Imprints in Density–Distance–Time: A Rocky Composition for Close-in Low-mass Exoplanets from the Location of the Valley of Evaporation (2017, methodology): “In reality, one would expect a range of ice mass contents, depending on the exact formation location and chemical composition of the disk (e.g., Mordasini et al. 2016).”
• An ALMA Survey of Protoplanetary Disks in the σ Orionis Cluster (2017, background): “Indeed, exoplanet population synthesis models indicate that planetary properties and architectures are dictated by the initial dust and gas content of protoplanetary disks and their subsequent evolution (e.g., Thommes et al. 2008; Mordasini et al. 2012; Bitsch et al. 2015; Mordasini et al. 2016).”
• H2O abundances and cloud properties in ten hot giant exoplanets (2018, background): “…estimates of individual objects as well as populations with the derived statistical uncertainties would be valuable inputs for studies investigating planet formation and migration (Öberg et al. 2011; Mousis et al. 2012; Madhusudhan et al. 2014b; Mordasini et al. 2016; Madhusudhan et al. 2017).”