The Peculiar Atmospheric Chemistry of KELT-9b

TL;DR

KELT-9b's ultra-hot atmosphere is predicted to be close to chemical equilibrium despite intense UV radiation, with water acting as a temperature indicator and CO as a metallicity marker, making it ideal for high-resolution spectroscopy.

Contribution

This study provides the first detailed photochemical kinetic predictions for KELT-9b's atmosphere, highlighting its near-equilibrium chemistry and potential for spectroscopic characterization.

Findings

Water abundance varies significantly with temperature, serving as a thermometer.

Carbon monoxide is the dominant molecule across various scenarios.

Atomic iron and other metals are detectable through high-resolution spectroscopy.

Abstract

The atmospheric temperatures of the ultra-hot Jupiter KELT-9b straddle the transition between gas giants and stars, and therefore between two traditionally distinct regimes of atmospheric chemistry. Previous theoretical studies assume the atmosphere of KELT-9b to be in chemical equilibrium. Despite the high ultraviolet flux from KELT-9, we show using photochemical kinetics calculations that the observable atmosphere of KELT-9b is predicted to be close to chemical equilibrium, which greatly simplifies any theoretical interpretation of its spectra. It also makes the atmosphere of KELT-9b, which is expected to be cloudfree, a tightly constrained chemical system that lends itself to a clean set of theoretical predictions. Due to the lower pressures probed in transmission (compared to emission) spectroscopy, we predict the abundance of water to vary by several orders of magnitude across the atmospheric limb depending on temperature, which makes water a sensitive thermometer. Carbon monoxide is predicted to be the dominant molecule under a wide range of scenarios, rendering it a robust diagnostic of the metallicity when analyzed in tandem with water. All of the other usual suspects (acetylene, ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, methane) are predicted to be subdominant at solar metallicity, while atomic oxygen, iron and magnesium are predicted to have relative abundances as high as 1 part in 10,000. Neutral atomic iron is predicted to be seen through a forest of optical and near-infrared lines, which makes KELT-9b suitable for high-resolution ground-based spectroscopy with HARPS-N or CARMENES. We summarize future observational prospects of characterizing the atmosphere of KELT-9b.