The role of clouds on the depletion of methane and water dominance in the transmission spectra of irradiated exoplanets

TL;DR

This study explores how clouds influence the spectral signatures of methane and water in irradiated exoplanets, revealing that clouds can obscure methane features and alter atmospheric composition, affecting detection strategies.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant impact of clouds on methane and water spectral features, extending previous models to include cloud effects and providing new insights into atmospheric composition.

Findings

Clouds heat the photosphere of colder planets, obscuring methane features.

Cloud presence leads to water-dominated spectra in colder, carbon-poor exoplanets.

Clouds can explain high contrast observations in Spitzer IRAC channels.

Abstract

Observations suggest an abundance of water and paucity of methane in the majority of observed exoplanetary atmospheres. We isolate the effect of atmospheric processes to investigate possible causes. Previously, we studied the effect of effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, carbon-to-oxygen ratio, and stellar type assuming cloud-free thermochemical equilibrium and disequilibrium chemistry. However, under these assumptions, methane remains a persisting spectral feature in the transmission spectra of exoplanets over a certain parameter space, the Methane Valley. In this work we investigate the role of clouds on this domain and we find that clouds change the spectral appearance of methane in two direct ways: 1) by heating-up the photosphere of colder planets, and 2) by obscuring molecular features. The presence of clouds also affects methane features indirectly: 1) cloud heating results in more evaporation of condensates and hence releases additional oxygen, causing water dominated spectra of colder carbon-poor exoplanets, and 2) HCN/CO production results in a suppression of depleted methane features by these molecules. The presence of HCN/CO and a lack of methane could be an indication of cloud formation on hot exoplanets. Cloud heating can also deplete ammonia. Therefore, a simultaneous depletion of methane and ammonia is not unique to photochemical processes. We propose that the best targets for methane detection are likely to be massive but smaller planets with a temperature around 1450 K orbiting colder stars. We also construct Spitzer synthetic color-maps and find that clouds can explain some of the high contrast observations by IRAC's channel 1 and 2.