Cleaning our Hazy Lens: Exploring Trends in Transmission Spectra of Warm Exoplanets

TL;DR

This study analyzes transmission spectra of 25 warm exoplanets to understand atmospheric haziness, finding no single parameter explains haziness but suggesting some planetary properties may influence atmospheric clarity.

Contribution

It introduces new statistical methods for small sample analysis and provides a comprehensive correlation study of atmospheric haziness with planetary and stellar parameters.

Findings

No significant correlation between haziness and temperature or envelope mass.

Tentative correlations found with gravity, scale height, density, eccentricity, and star age.

Lower atmospheric scale height and higher gravity may lead to clearer atmospheres.

Abstract

Relatively little is understood about the atmospheric composition of temperate to warm exoplanets (equilibrium temperature $T_{\rm eq}<$ 1000 K), as many of them are found to have uncharacteristically flat transmission spectra. Their flattened spectra are likely due to atmospheric opacity sources such as planet-wide photochemical hazes and condensation clouds. We compile the transmission spectra of 25 warm exoplanets previously observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and quantify the haziness of each exoplanet using a normalized amplitude of the water absorption feature ($A_{\rm H}$). By examining the relationships between $A_{\rm H}$ and various planetary and stellar forcing parameters, we endeavor to find correlations of haziness associated with planetary properties. We adopt new statistical correlation tests that are more suitable for the small, non-normally distributed warm exoplanet sample. Our analysis shows that none of the parameters hold statistically significant correlation with $A_{\rm H}$ ($p \le 0.01$) with the addition of new exoplanet data, including the previously identified linear trends between $A_{\rm H}$ and $T_{\rm{eq}}$ or hydrogen-helium envelope mass fraction (f$_{\rm{HHe}}$). This suggests that haziness in warm exoplanets is not simply controlled by any single planetary/stellar parameter. Among all the parameters we investigated, planet gravity ($g_{\rm p}$), atmospheric scale height ($H$), planet density ($\rho_{\rm p}$), orbital eccentricity ($e$), and age of the star ($t_{\rm age}$) hold tentative correlations with $A_{\rm H}$. Specifically, lower $H$, higher $g_{\rm p}$, $\rho_{\rm p}$, $e$, or $t_{\rm age}$ may lead to clearer atmospheres. We still need more observations and laboratory experiments to fully understand the complex physics and chemistry involved in creating hazy warm exoplanets.