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We present a new method to retrieve molecular abundances and temperature profiles from exoplanet atmosphere photometry and spectroscopy. We run millions of 1D atmosphere models in order to cover the large range of allowed parameter space,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2014-11-20 N. Madhusudhan , S. Seager

Motivated by the recent surge in interest concerning white dwarf (WD) planets, this work presents the first numerical exploration of WD-driven atmospheric escape, whereby the high-energy radiation from a hot/young WD can trigger the outflow…

The He I line at 1.08 $\mu$m is a valuable tracer of atmospheric escape in exoplanet atmospheres. We expand past networks used to predict the absorbing He(2$^3S$) by including, firstly, processes that involve H$_2$ and some molecular ions…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-06-18 Antonio García Muñoz

We use 3D hydrodynamics simulations followed by synthetic line profile calculations to examine the effect increasing the strength of the stellar wind has on observed Ly-$\alpha$ transits of a Hot Jupiter (HJ) and a Warm Neptune (WN). We…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-11-11 S. Carolan , A. A. Vidotto , C. Villarreal D'Angelo , G. Hazra

Atmospheric escape from close-in exoplanets is thought to be crucial in shaping observed planetary populations. Recently, significant progress has been made in observing this process in action through excess absorption in transit spectra…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-03-09 Morgan MacLeod , Antonija Oklopčić

Atmospheric escape shapes exoplanet evolution and star-planet interactions, with He I 10830 \AA\ absorption serving as a key tracer of mass loss in hot gas giants. However, transit depths vary significantly across observed systems for…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-06-11 Anna Ruth Taylor , Tommi T. Koskinen , Luca Argenti , Nicholas Lewis , Chenliang Huang , Anthony Arfaux , Panayotis Lavvas

Observations of present-day mass-loss rates for close-in transiting exoplanets provide a crucial check on models of planetary evolution. One common approach is to model the planetary absorption signal during the transit in lines like He I…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-03-14 Shreyas Vissapragada , Heather A. Knutson , Leonardo A. dos Santos , Lile Wang , Fei Dai

The recent discovery of ``ultra-hot'' ($P < 1$ day) Neptunes has come as a surprise: some of these planets have managed to retain gaseous envelopes despite being close enough to their host stars to trigger strong photoevaporation and/or…

Intense X-ray and ultraviolet stellar irradiation can heat and inflate the atmospheres of closely orbiting exoplanets, driving mass outflows that may be significant enough to evaporate a sizable fraction of the planet atmosphere over the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-11-10 Andrea Caldiroli , Francesco Haardt , Elena Gallo , Riccardo Spinelli , Isaac Malsky , Emily Rauscher

Thermal emission spectra of exoplanets provide constraints on the chemical compositions, pressure-temperature (P-T) profiles, and energy transport in exoplanetary atmospheres. Accurate inferences of these properties rely on the robustness…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-10-20 Siddharth Gandhi , Nikku Madhusudhan

Transmission spectroscopy is a key technique in the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres and has been widely applied to planets undergoing hydrodynamic escape. While a robust analytic theory exists for transmission spectra of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-04-09 Leonardos Gkouvelis

Accurately determining escape rates from a planet's atmosphere is critical for determining its evolution. Escape can be driven by upward thermal conduction of energy deposited well below the exobase, as well as by non-thermal processes…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-14 R. E. Johnson

Photoevaporation in exoplanet atmospheres is thought to contribute to the shaping of the small planet radius valley. Escaping atmospheres have been detected in transmission across a variety of exoplanet types, from hot Jupiters to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-01-13 Riley Rosener , Michael Zhang , Jacob L. Bean

Observations of escaping atmospheres on close-in exoplanets show a wide range in the strength and morphology of He I 10830 A and H I absorption. Scaling relations attempt to link the He I signal to XUV irradiation, mass loss, and bulk…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-02-03 Anna Ruth Taylor , Tommi T. Koskinen , Chenliang Huang , Anthony Arfaux , Panayotis Lavvas

The internal composition of sub-Neptunes remains a prominent unresolved question in exoplanetary science. We present a technique to place constraints on envelope mean molecular weight that utilises observations of escaping hydrogen or…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-01-21 James G. Rogers , James E. Owen , Ethan Schreyer , James Kirk

Characterising the atmospheres of exoplanets is key to understanding their nature and provides hints about their formation and evolution. High-resolution measurements of the helium triplet, He(2$^{3}$S), absorption of highly irradiated…

Stellar heating causes atmospheres of close-in exoplanets to expand and escape. These extended atmospheres are difficult to observe because their main spectral signature - neutral hydrogen at ultraviolet wavelengths - is strongly absorbed…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-12-07 R. Allart , V. Bourrier , C. Lovis , D. Ehrenreich , J. J. Spake , A. Wyttenbach , L. Pino , F. Pepe , D. K. Sing , A. Lecavelier des Etangs

We present a three-species multi-fluid MHD model (H$^+$, H$_2$O$^+$ and e$^-$), endowed with the requisite atmospheric chemistry, that is capable of accurately quantifying the magnitude of water ion losses from exoplanets. We apply this…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-09-20 Chuanfei Dong , Zhenguang Huang , Manasvi Lingam , Gábor Tóth , Tamas Gombosi , Amitava Bhattacharjee

The warm Neptune GJ436b was observed with HST/STIS at three different epochs in the stellar Ly-alpha line, showing deep, repeated transits caused by a giant exosphere of neutral hydrogen. The low radiation pressure from the M-dwarf host…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2016-06-29 Vincent Bourrier , Alain Lecavelier des Etangs , David Ehrenreich , Yuki. A. Tanaka , Aline A. Vidotto

Atmospheric escape has been detected from the exoplanet HD 209458b through transit observations of the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line. Here we present spectrally resolved Lyman-alpha transit observations of the exoplanet HD 189733b at two…