Limits on the Spin-Orbit Angle and Atmospheric Escape for the 22 Myr-old Planet AU Mic b

TL;DR

This study investigates the orbital alignment and atmospheric escape of the 22-million-year-old planet AU Mic b using high-resolution spectroscopy, providing constraints on its spin-orbit angle and atmospheric mass loss rate.

Contribution

It presents the first constraints on the spin-orbit alignment and atmospheric escape rate of AU Mic b through high-dispersion spectroscopy and modeling.

Findings

System likely has a near-aligned spin-orbit angle.

Atmospheric escape rate is constrained to less than 0.15-0.45 Earth masses per Gyr.

No significant He I absorption detected, setting upper limits.

Abstract

We obtained spectra of the pre-main sequence star AU Microscopii during a transit of its Neptune-sized planet to investigate its orbit and atmosphere. We used the high-dispersion near-infrared spectrograph IRD on the Subaru telescope to detect the Doppler "shadow" from the planet and constrain the projected stellar obliquity. Modeling of the observed planetary Doppler shadow suggests a spin-orbit alignment of the system ($\lambda=-4.7_{-6.4}^{+6.8}$ degrees), but additional observations are needed to confirm this finding. We use both the IRD data and spectra obtained with NIRSPEC on Keck-II to search for absorption in the 1083 nm line of metastable triplet He I by the planet's atmosphere and place an upper limit for the equivalent width of 3.7 m\AA at 99 $\%$ confidence. With this limit and a Parker wind model we constrain the escape rate from the atmosphere to $<0.15-0.45\, M_{\oplus}$ Gyr$^{-1}$, comparable to the rates predicted by an XUV energy-limited escape calculation and hydrodynamic models, but refinement of the planet mass is needed for rigorous tests.