Publication Abstracts

Drummond et al. 2018

Drummond, B., N.J. Mayne, J. Manners, A.L. Carter, I.A. Boutle, I. Baraffe, É. Hébrard, P. Tremblin, D.K. Sing, D.S. Amundsen, and D. Acreman, 2018: Observable signatures of wind-driven chemistry with a fully consistent three dimensional radiative hydrodynamics model of HD 209458b. Astrophys. J. Lett., 855, no. 2, L31, doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aab209.

We present a study of the effect of wind-driven advection on the chemical composition of hot Jupiter atmospheres using a fully-consistent 3D hydrodynamics, chemistry and radiative transfer code, the Met Office Unified Model (UM). Chemical modelling of exoplanet atmospheres has primarily been restricted to 1D models that cannot account for 3D dynamical processes. In this work we couple a chemical relaxation scheme to the UM to account for the chemical interconversion of methane and carbon monoxide. This is done consistently with the radiative transfer meaning that departures from chemical equilibrium are included in the heating rates (and emission) and hence complete the feedback between the dynamics, thermal structure and chemical composition. In this letter we simulate the well studied atmosphere of HD 209458b. We find that the combined effect of horizontal and vertical advection leads to an increase in the methane abundance by several orders of magnitude; directly opposite to the trend found in previous works. Our results demonstrate the need to include 3D effects when considering the chemistry of hot Jupiter atmospheres. We calculate transmission and emission spectra, as well as the emission phase curve, from our simulations. We conclude that gas-phase non-equilibrium chemistry is unlikely to explain the model-observation discrepancy in the 4.5 µm Spitzer/IRAC channel. However, we highlight other spectral regions, observable with the James Webb Space Telescope, where signatures of wind-driven chemistry are more prominant.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{dr04400s,
  author={Drummond, B. and Mayne, N. J. and Manners, J. and Carter, A. L. and Boutle, I. A. and Baraffe, I. and Hébrard, É. and Tremblin, P. and Sing, D. K. and Amundsen, D. S. and Acreman, D.},
  title={Observable signatures of wind-driven chemistry with a fully consistent three dimensional radiative hydrodynamics model of HD 209458b},
  year={2018},
  journal={Astrophysical Journal Letters},
  volume={855},
  number={2},
  pages={L31},
  doi={10.3847/2041-8213/aab209},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - dr04400s
AU  - Drummond, B.
AU  - Mayne, N. J.
AU  - Manners, J.
AU  - Carter, A. L.
AU  - Boutle, I. A.
AU  - Baraffe, I.
AU  - Hébrard, É.
AU  - Tremblin, P.
AU  - Sing, D. K.
AU  - Amundsen, D. S.
AU  - Acreman, D.
PY  - 2018
TI  - Observable signatures of wind-driven chemistry with a fully consistent three dimensional radiative hydrodynamics model of HD 209458b
JA  - Astrophys. J. Lett.
JO  - Astrophysical Journal Letters
VL  - 855
IS  - 2
SP  - L31
DO  - 10.3847/2041-8213/aab209
ER  -

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