Atmosphere of a Transiting Exoplanet, Probed in the

Lyman- Band
By Louis Oberto
July 31, 2014

Introduction

Background

An exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star

different from our own. To date, more than
1,700 exoplanets have been confirmed1 . Of
these, most tend to come in one of two varieties. They are either hot Jupiters or hot
Neptunes, so-called due to the fact that they
are gas giants with masses several times that
of our own Earth. They also orbit very close
to their host stars, having orbital radii of days
(or even hours). For comparison, the closest planet in our own solar system, Mercury,
has an orbital period of 88 days. There
are many methods to detect exoplanets. One
popular way is by the transit method.
The transit method is a way of detecting
exoplanets by looking for a change in flux
coming from the host star. When the planet
occults the star, some of the light will be
blocked. Thus, the flux will drop, slightly.
This drop in flux is detectable, here on Earth.
Moreover, changes in brightness can be detected at various wavelengths. There are several telescopes that can observe these dips.
Two notable, space-faring satellites are the
Kepler Space Telescope and the Hubble Space
Telescope. Kepler is actually designed to
hunt for exoplanets, however it only can see
in the visible spectrum (400-865nm). On the
other hand, HST can see in both the visible and UV spectrum (100-1100nm). An important part of the UV spectrum (10-400nm)

A Jupiter-like extrasolar planet (i.e., a hotJupiter) close to the host star, can have an
atmosphere extending to several times the
planet radius, as a result of the heating from
the star. Such an extended atmosphere is
transparent to visible light and hard to be
observed in the optical band. However, in
the Lyman- band, the extended atmosphere
can be detected, because of the interaction of
Lyman- photons with the neutral hydrogen
atoms in the atmosphere. A fraction of the
Lyman- photons emitted from the star are
intercepted by the planet, and these photons
experience resonant scattering in the planets
atmosphere and eventually escape the atmosphere. Therefore, in the Lyman- band,
the planet appears to be effectively emitting
light. We perform a Lyman- radiative transfer study of a model transiting hot-Jupiter
system. In the Lyman- band, the transit
signal is much stronger (compared to that in
the optical band), a consequence of the extended atmosphere. The effective Lyman-
emission from the planet also shows a phase
variation as the planet orbits around the star.
We investigate how the transit and phasechange light curve depends on the distribution of neutral hydrogen in the atmosphere.
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University of Utah, Summer 2014, Final Report

is that Lyman- band photons are contained

within it, but what are Lyman- (Ly) photons? Some basic characteristics of these
photons are that they have a wavelength of
120nm and can interact with neutral hydrogen. Specifically, if we examine the Bohr
model of hydrogen, the atom gets excited
when it absorbs a photon, transitioning from
the n = 1 to the n = 2 state. However, this
form is unstable, with a lifetime of 1.6ns.
So, it will transition back down to the n = 1
state. As this occurs, a photon is emitted.
This photon is called a Lyman- photon.

Model

We wish to model what one of these systems

would look like. To do so, we will be using
a hot Jupiter-like exoplanet, with the following characteristics: short orbital period, extended hydrogen atmosphere (1/2 radius of
star), orbiting a Sun-like star with an edge-on
perspective. From this basic system, we expect to find three typical features: the planet
transiting the star (causing a drop in stellar
flux), the star blocking the planet (causing
a drop in planetary flux), and effective emission of the planet, which includes variation
with phase.

4.1

4 MODEL

Motivation

Planetary Flux

We begin our model by examining planetary

flux. The star is emitting photons in all directions. Some of these photons will become
intercepted by the planet. The photons will
interact with the hydrogen in the atmosphere,
continuously being scattered by the hydrogen
atoms. Eventually, the photons escape back
into space. This will happen for every intercepted photon. Hence, the planet appears to
be effectively emitting Ly light! From this
simple set up, we can produce the light curve
of the planet.
Examining the graph (Fig. 1), we have period along the x-axis, with relative flux (to
the star) for the other axis. We can see that
the flux is increasing with period, thus having
variation with the phase - from our edge-on
perspective. Then, around 1/2 period, the

Now that we have covered what a Ly photon

is, why are they important? To put it simply,
they allow us to probe the universe. One way
they do this is that they interact with certain
medium, where optical and other lightwaves
pass directly through. As an example of this,
it has been shown that some of these hotJupiters, orbiting close their host star, can
have large, extended hydrogen atmospheres.
In fact, they can balloon to 1/2 the radius
of the parent star2 , as result of heating from
the star itself. These atmospheres are not
visible at optical wavelengths! However, in
the Ly band, a photon that passes through
the atmosphere will hit a hydrogen atom, becoming scattered. As it does, it hits another
hydrogen atom, getting scattered once more.
This process continues on until the photon
escapes the atmosphere. This will leave signatures in the light curve of the star. Thus,
we can learn about these explanetary atmospheres from the light curves. These hydrogen atmospheres are what motivated our research.

Period

Figure 1: Planetary Flux

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University of Utah, Summer 2014, Final Report

5 DENSITY DEPENDENCE

can infer many details about the planet. We

can use it to find the size of the planet and
its period, which has been done for nearly
20 years. What is new about this curve is
the increase in flux past 100%, which can tell
us information on the extended atmosphere,
such as: its size, density, velocity, etc.

flux drops off to zero as the planet is blocked

by the star. As it comes out on the other side,
the flux increases sharply, but then will gradually decrease to near zero. This correlates
with the planet transiting the star. That is,
the light reflected off the planet is in the direction opposite of us. We use a number density
of nHI = 106 , which can be thought of as the
opaqueness of the atmosphere. The higher
the number, the more opaque, and, thus, the
more light reflected.

0.99

0.98
0

Period

4.2

Stellar Flux
Figure 3: Total Flux

Now, we move on to stellar flux. This is easier to model. As already mentioned, the star
is emitting photons isotropically, in all directions. Hence, if the planet were not present,
we would expect to receive 100% of the light
from the star. Yet, as the planet crosses the
stars disk, we will begin to see a gradually
decrease in the flux. The decrease continues
until the planetary disk is completely contained within the solar disk, where the decreased flux is then proportional to the square
of the planets radius. Thus, we would expect
the solar flux to decrease down 0.75, as

Density Dependence

One quality of the planetary light curve is its

dependence on the density of hydrogen in the
atmosphere. By looking at several different
number densities, we can find patterns in the
light curves (Fig. 4). At higher densities,
nHI > 105 , we see curves similar to what we
had before, with maximal relative flux around
0.002. Yet, at densities lower than 105 , we see
different features. First, the flux increases far
2
more gradually, peaking lower. Indeed, for
rpl.
= 0.52 = 0.25.
103 , the curve barely increases and is noisy,
This is all the information we need to con- but it also remains above zero. The other
struct a graph of this system (Fig. 2).
prominent feature of lower densities is the
double-peak feature.

4.3

Combined Flux

We can now combine the curves, and get a

full picture of the system (Fig. 3). From the
graph, with y-axis > 0.98 to show detail, we
1
0.95
0.9

Period

0.85
0.8

Figure 4: Density Dependencies

0.75
0

0.5

1.5

Period

Looking closer at the double-peak features,

we can see that they are not as drastic when

Figure 2: Stellar Flux

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University of Utah, Summer 2014, Final Report

zoomed in on (Fig. 5). The graphs represents

1/10th of a period. The peaks occur, because,
with lower column densities, a photon has less
chance of hitting a hydrogen atom. Thus,
it has an increased probability of passing directly through the atmosphere, which is what
we are seeing in these peak features. The column density, NHI , can be thought of as a slice
of the atmosphere and thus is proportional to
rpl. nHI . Our radius, in centimeters, is roughly
1010 cm. So, curves in the figure are equivalent to nHI = 103 and nHI = 104 , respectively.
The double peaks themselves occur for a
similar reason. As the planet begins its occultation of the star, the effective column density is low. However, as more of the planet
begins to transit, there is a higher and higher
column density. That is, the photons have
more and more atmosphere to travel through
(in our direction). Eventually, the column
density becomes too high, correlating to the
planet fully within the stellar disk. And so,
we see a drop in flux corresponding to this.
As the planet begins to exit the stellar disk,
the the pattern is repeated backwards. Thus,
a double-peak feature occurs.

ble in optical wavelengths. These are useful

for observing certain phenomena in the universe. One such example is from hot-Jupiter
systems, which have been shown to contain large, extended hydrogen atmospheres
only visible in the Ly band. By modeling
this type of system, we could infer information about the atmosphere of these planets,
through examination of the host stars light
curve. One such quality we found was the
dependence on atmospheric density.
There is still work to be done on this subject. We currently are examining the effect
atmospheric velocity has on the light curve.
In addition, we can look at the dependence
on Ly photon wavelength, examining the
system at different viewing angles, modeling
a more dynamical system, etc.

References
[1] NASA Exoplanet Archive, 27 June 2014,
http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu

Planetary Lightcurves (0.95<Period<1.05)

[2] Heng,
Showman
arXiv:1407.415v1

0
0.95

0.975

1.025

1.05

1.025

1.05

Period

0.95

0.975

1
Period

Figure 5: Double-peak Features

REFERENCES

Period

Conclusions

To summarize, observations in the Lyman-

band will allow us to see things not visi4

et

al.

2014,