The Interstellar Medium in the Kepler Search Volume

TL;DR

This study investigates the interstellar medium around Kepler exoplanet systems by analyzing absorption lines, revealing ISM cloud properties and estimating their impact on planetary astrospheres, which affects planetary environments.

Contribution

The paper provides new observations of ISM clouds in the Kepler field, constrains their properties, and assesses their influence on exoplanetary astrospheres, a novel approach in exoplanet environment studies.

Findings

Identified 39 Na I and 8 K I absorption components linked to 11 ISM clouds.

Detected a high-density cloud within the Local Bubble boundary.

Estimated potential sizes of exoplanetary astrospheres affected by ISM conditions.

Abstract

The properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) surrounding a planetary system can impact planetary climate through a number of mechanisms, including changing the size of the astrosphere (one of the major shields for cosmic rays) as well as direct deposition of material into planetary atmospheres. In order to constrain the ambient ISM conditions for exoplanetary systems, we present observations of interstellar Na I and K I absorption towards seventeen early-type stars in the Kepler prime mission field of view. We identify 39 Na I and 8 K I velocity components, and attribute these to eleven ISM clouds. Six of these are detected towards more than one star, and for these clouds we put limits on the cloud properties, including distance and hydrogen number density. We identify one cloud with significant (>1.5 cm$^{-3}$) hydrogen number density located within the nominal ~100 pc boundary of the Local Bubble. We identify systems with confirmed planets within the Kepler field of view that could lie within these ISM clouds, and estimate upper limits on the astrosphere sizes of these systems under the assumption that they do lie within these clouds. Under this condition, the Kepler-20, 42, and 445 multiplanet systems could have compressed astrospheres much smaller than the present-day heliosphere. Among the known habitable zone planet hosts, Kepler-186 could have an astrosphere somewhat smaller than the heliosphere, while Kepler-437 and KOI-4427 could have astrospheres much larger than the heliosphere. The thick disk star Kepler-444 may have an astrosphere just a few AU in radius.