Atmospheric escape from young exoplanets

Paper Title:

The MOPYS project: A survey of 70 planets in search of extended He I and H atmospheres. No evidence of enhanced evaporation in young planets

Published on:

25 April 2024

Primary Category:

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Paper Authors:

J. Orell-Miquel,

F. Murgas,

E. Pallé,

M. Mallorquín,

M. López-Puertas,

M. Lampón,

J. Sanz-Forcada,

L. Nortmann,

S. Czesla,

E. Nagel,

I. Ribas,

M. Stangret,

J. Livingston,

E. Knudstrup,

S. H. Albrecht,

I. Carleo,

J. Caballero,

F. Dai,

E. Esparza-Borges,

A. Fukui,

K. Heng,

Th. Henning,

T. Kagetani,

F. Lesjak,

J. P. de Leon,

D. Montes,

G. Morello,

N. Narita,

A. Quirrenbach,

P. J. Amado,

A. Reiners,

A. Schweitzer,

J. I. Vico Linares

Bullets

Key Details

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20 young exoplanets surveyed for atmospheric escape in helium and hydrogen alpha

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New helium triplet detections for TOI-1268b and TOI-2018b

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No evidence young planets show more frequent atmospheric escape

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Escape signatures peak for 1-3 billion year old systems

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Dimensionless ratio R_He/R_Hill may explain helium detections

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Upper boundary found for helium detections in temperature-density space

Explore the topics in this paper

escape signatures

exoplanets

helium

hydrogen spectroscopy

planetary atmospheres

AI generated summary

Atmospheric escape from young exoplanets

This paper presents a survey of 20 young exoplanets looking for atmospheric escape signals in the helium triplet and hydrogen alpha spectral lines. Two new helium detections were found for TOI-1268b and TOI-2018b. When combined with 50 other planets from the literature, the results show that young planets do not exhibit more frequent escape signatures compared to older planets. Instead, escape seems more common for 1-3 billion year old systems. The paper explores what factors best explain the observed helium absorption, like the ratio of the absorbing height to the Hill radius, and it identifies an upper boundary in planet temperature and density above which helium is unlikely to be detected.