Atmosphere expansion and mass loss of close-orbit giant exoplanets heated by stellar XUV: I. Modeling of hydrodynamic escape of upper atmospheric material

TL;DR

This paper models the hydrodynamic escape of upper atmospheric material from close-orbit giant exoplanets, considering radiative heating, ionization, and boundary conditions, to understand mass loss processes.

Contribution

It presents a hydrodynamic model of atmospheric expansion for Hot Jupiters, including radiative effects and boundary conditions, with results consistent with previous models.

Findings

Maximum plasma temperature ~9000K at 0.05 AU

Mass loss rate ~4-7 x 10^10 g/s

Escape regime close to energy-limited case

Abstract

In the present series of papers we propose a consistent description of the mass loss process. To study the effects of intrinsic magnetic field of a close-orbit giant exoplanet (so-called Hot Jupiter) on the atmospheric material escape and formation of planetary inner magnetosphere in a comprehensive way, we start with a hydrodynamic model of an upper atmosphere expansion presented in this paper. While considering a simple hydrogen atmosphere model, we focus on selfconsistent inclusion of the effects of radiative heating and ionization of the atmospheric gas with its consequent expansion in the outer space. Primary attention is paid to investigation of the role of specific conditions at the inner and outer boundaries of the simulation domain, under which different regimes of material escape (free- and restricted- flow) are formed. Comparative study of different processes, such as XUV heating, material ionization and recombination, H3+ cooling, adiabatic and Lyman-alpha cooling, Lyman-alpha reabsorption is performed. We confirm basic consistence of the outcomes of our modeling with the results of other hydrodynamic models of expanding planetary atmospheres. In particular, we obtain that under the typical conditions of an orbital distance 0.05 AU around a Sun-type star a Hot Jupiter plasma envelope may reach maximum temperatures up to ~9000K with a hydrodynamic escape speed ~9 km/s resulting in the mass loss rates ~(4-7)*10^10 g*s . In the range of considered stellar-planetary parameters and XUV fluxes that is close to mass loss in the energy limited case. The inclusion of planetary intrinsic magnetic fields in the model is a subject of the following up paper (Paper II).