Transmission Spectra of Three-Dimensional Hot Jupiter Model Atmospheres

TL;DR

This paper models the transmission spectra of hot Jupiters, analyzing the effects of atmospheric parameters and comparing 1D and 3D models to observations, revealing metallicity indicators and hemisphere differences.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of 1D and 3D transmission spectra for hot Jupiters, highlighting the impact of atmospheric dynamics and composition on observed spectra.

Findings

Carbon dioxide absorption indicates high metallicity.

Differences between 1D and 3D models are generally small but significant near chemical boundaries.

Hemispheric differences in carbon chemistry can be probed with JWST.

Abstract

We compute models of the transmission spectra of planets HD 209458b, HD 189733b, and generic hot Jupiters. We examine the effects of temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity for the generic planets as a guide to understanding transmission spectra in general. We find that carbon dioxide absorption at 4.4 and 15 microns is prominent at high metallicity, and is a clear metallicity indicator. For HD 209458b and HD 189733b, we compute spectra for both one-dimensional and three-dimensional model atmospheres and examine the differences between them. The differences are usually small, but can be large if atmospheric temperatures are near important chemical abundance boundaries. The calculations for the 3D atmospheres, and their comparison with data, serve as constraints on these dynamical models that complement the secondary eclipse and light curve data sets. For HD 209458b, even if TiO and VO gases are abundant on the day side, their abundances can be considerably reduced on the cooler planetary limb. However, given the predicted limb temperatures and TiO abundances, the model's optical opacity is too high. For HD 189733b we find a good match with some infrared data sets and constrain the altitude of a postulated haze layer. For this planet, substantial differences can exist between the transmission spectra of the leading and trailing hemispheres, which is an excellent probe of carbon chemistry. In thermochemical equilibrium, the cooler leading hemisphere is methane-dominated, and the hotter trailing hemisphere is CO-dominated, but these differences may be eliminated by non-equilibrium chemistry due to vertical mixing. It may be possible to constrain the carbon chemistry of this planet, and its spatial variation, with JWST.