The Effect of 3D Transport-Induced Disequilibrium Carbon Chemistry on the Atmospheric Structure and Phase Curves and Emission Spectra of Hot Jupiter HD 189733b

TL;DR

This study investigates how 3D transport-induced disequilibrium carbon chemistry affects the atmospheric structure and observable spectra of hot Jupiter HD 189733b, revealing significant impacts on emission spectra but not explaining certain observed fluxes.

Contribution

The paper introduces a modified GCM that incorporates disequilibrium abundances of key molecules, showing their substantial effect on temperature and spectra predictions for hot Jupiters.

Findings

Temperature changes of 50-100 K due to disequilibrium chemistry.

Strong impact on spectra in methane absorption bands.

Disequilibrium chemistry cannot explain low nightside fluxes at 4.5 μm.

Abstract

On hot Jupiter exoplanets, strong horizontal and vertical winds should homogenize the abundances of the important absorbers CH$_4$ and CO much faster than chemical reactions restore chemical equilibrium. This effect, typically neglected in general circulation models (GCMs), has been suggested as explanation for discrepancies between observed infrared lightcurves and those predicted by GCMs: On the nightsides of several hot Jupiters, GCMs predict outgoing fluxes that are too large, especially in the Spitzer 4.5 $\mu$m band. We modified the SPARC/MITgcm to include disequilibrium abundances of CH$_4$, CO and H$_2$O by assuming that the CH$_4$/CO ratio is constant throughout the simulation domain. We ran simulations of hot Jupiter HD 189733b with 8 CH$_4$/CO ratios. In the more likely CO-dominated regime, we find temperature changes $\geq$50-100 K compared to the equilibrium chemistry case across large regions. This effect is large enough to affect predicted emission spectra and should thus be included in GCMs of hot Jupiters with equilibrium temperatures between 600K and 1300K. We find that spectra in regions with strong methane absorption, including the Spitzer 3.6 and 8 $\mu$m bands, are strongly impacted by disequilibrium abundances. We expect chemical quenching to result in much larger nightside fluxes in the 3.6 $\mu$m band, in stark contrast to observations. Meanwhile, we find almost no effect on predicted observations in the 4.5 $\mu$m band, as the opacity changes due to CO and H$_2$O offset each other. We thus conclude that disequilibrium carbon chemistry cannot explain the observed low nightside fluxes in the 4.5 $\mu$m band.