Journal article
Temperature–chemistry coupling in the evolution of gas giant atmospheres driven by stellar flares
- Abstract:
- The effect of enhanced UV irradiation associated with stellar flares on the atmospheric composition and temperature of gas giant exoplanets was investigated. This was done using a 1D radiative-convective-chemical model with self-consistent feedback between the temperature and the non-equilibrium chemistry. It was found that flare-driven changes to chemical composition and temperature give rise to prolonged trends in evolution across a broad range of pressure levels and species. Allowing feedback between chemistry and temperature plays an important role in establishing the quiescent structure of these atmospheres, and determines their evolution due to flares. It was found that cooler planets are more susceptible to flares than warmer ones, seeing larger changes in composition and temperature, and that temperature–chemistry feedback modifies their evolution. Long-term exposure to flares changes the transmission spectra of gas giant atmospheres; these changes differed when the temperature structure was allowed to evolve self-consistently with the chemistry. Changes in spectral features due to the effects of flares on these atmospheres can be associated with changes in composition. The effects of flares on the atmospheres of sufficiently cool planets will impact observations made with JWST. It is necessary to use self-consistent models of temperature and chemistry in order to accurately capture the effects of flares on features in the transmission spectra of cooler gas giants, but this depends heavily on the radiation environment of the planet.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.9MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/mnras/stad1734
Authors
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Journal:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society More from this journal
- Volume:
- 523
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 5681–5702
- Publication date:
- 2023-06-15
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-06-06
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1365-2966
- ISSN:
-
0035-8711
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1571416
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1571416
- Deposit date:
-
2023-11-27
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Nicholls et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record