Stellar wind impact on early atmospheres around unmagnetized Earth-like planets

TL;DR

This study investigates how stellar winds from young, active stars influence the early atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets, revealing that fast stellar rotation significantly reduces atmospheric extent, impacting planetary habitability.

Contribution

The paper provides the first 3D MHD simulations of stellar wind and atmosphere interactions for unmagnetized Earth-like planets, highlighting the differential effects of stellar rotation rates.

Findings

Fast-rotating stars cause substantial atmospheric erosion in early planetary stages.

Slow-rotating stars' winds have minimal impact on primordial atmospheres.

Formation of MHD structures like double-bow shocks observed around planets.

Abstract

Stellar rotation at early ages plays a crucial role in the survival of primordial atmospheres around Earth-mass exoplanets. Earth-like planets orbiting fast-rotating stars may undergo complete photoevaporation within the first few hundred Myr driven by the enhanced stellar XUV radiation, while planets orbiting slow-rotating stars are expected to experience difficulty to lose their primordial envelopes. Besides the action of stellar radiation, stellar winds induce additional erosion on these primordial atmospheres, altering their morphology, extent, and causing supplementary atmospheric losses. In this paper, we study the impact of activity-dependent stellar winds on primordial atmospheres to evaluate the extent at which the action of these winds can be significant in the whole planetary evolution at early evolutionary stages. We performed 3D magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulations of the interaction of photoevaporating atmospheres around unmagnetized Earth-mass planets in the time-span between 50 and 500 Myr, analyzing the joint evolution of stellar winds and atmospheres for both fast- and slow-rotating stars. Our results reveal substantial changes in the evolution of primordial atmospheres when influenced by fast-rotating stars, with a significant reduction in extent at early ages. In contrast, atmospheres embedded in the stellar winds from slow-rotating stars remain largely unaltered. The interaction of the magnetized stellar winds with the ionized upper atmospheres of these planets allows to evaluate the formation and evolution of different MHD structures, such as double-bow shocks and induced magnetospheres. This work will shed light to the first evolutionary stages of Earth-like exoplanets, that are of crucial relevance in terms of planet habitability.