Exoplanet HD209458b: inflated hydrogen atmosphere but no sign of evaporation

TL;DR

This study uses HST data to analyze the hydrogen atmosphere of exoplanet HD209458b, finding no evidence of evaporation despite previous suggestions of atmospheric inflation, and highlighting the importance of accounting for flux variability.

Contribution

It provides the first direct measurement of hydrogen absorption during transit and challenges previous estimates of atmospheric mass loss rates.

Findings

Hydrogen absorption during transit is about 8.9%.

No signs of atmospheric evaporation are detected.

Time variability in Lyman-alpha flux affects diagnostics.

Abstract

Many extrasolar planets orbit closely to their parent star. Their existence raises the fundamental problem of loss and gain in their mass. For exoplanet HD209458b, reports on an unusually extended hydrogen corona and a hot layer in the lower atmosphere seem to support the scenario of atmospheric inflation by the strong stellar irradiation. However, difficulties in reconciling evaporation models with observations call for a reassessment of the problem. Here, we use HST archive data to report a new absorption rate of ~8.9% +/- 2.1% by atomic hydrogen during the HD209458b transit, and show that no sign of evaporation could be detected for the exoplanet. We also report evidence of time variability in the HD209458 Lyman-a flux, a variability that was not accounted for in previous studies, which corrupted their diagnostics. Mass loss rates thus far proposed in the literature in the range 5x(10^{10}-10^{11} g s^{-1}) must induce a spectral signature in the Lyman-a line profile of HD209458 that cannot be found in the present analysis. Either an unknown compensation effect is hiding the expected spectral feature or else the mass loss rate of neutrals from HD209458 is modest.