Using observations of escaping H/He to constrain the atmospheric composition of sub-Neptunes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to constrain the atmospheric composition of sub-Neptunes using observations of escaping hydrogen or helium, providing insights into their envelope mean molecular weight and ruling out certain high-molecular-weight atmospheres.

Contribution

The study presents a novel timescale-based technique to estimate the atmospheric mean molecular weight of sub-Neptunes from escape observations, applied to several exoplanets including GJ-436 b and K2-18 b.

Findings

High mean molecular weight atmospheres are unlikely for TOI-776 c.

K2-18 b's hydrogen-rich envelope is inconsistent with the hycean scenario.

The method effectively constrains atmospheric compositions using escape data.

Abstract

The internal composition of sub-Neptunes remains a prominent unresolved question in exoplanetary science. We present a technique to place constraints on envelope mean molecular weight that utilises observations of escaping hydrogen or helium exospheres. This method is based on a simple timescale argument, which states that sub-Neptunes require a sufficiently large hydrogen or helium reservoir to explain on-going escape at their observed rates. This then naturally leads to an upper limit on atmospheric mean molecular weight. We apply this technique to archetypal sub-Neptunes, namely GJ-436 b, TOI-776 b and TOI-776 c, which have all been observed to be losing significant hydrogen content as well as relatively featureless transit spectra when observed with JWST. Combining constraints from atmospheric escape and transit spectroscopy in the case of TOI-776 c allows us to tentatively rule out the high mean molecular weight scenario, pointing towards a low mean molecular weight atmosphere with high-altitude aerosols muting spectral features in the infra-red. Finally, we reframe our analysis to the hycean candidate K2-18 b, which has also been shown to host a tentative escaping hydrogen exosphere. If such a detection is robust, we infer a hydrogen-rich envelope mass fraction of $\log f_\text{env} = -1.67\pm0.78$, which is inconsistent with the hycean scenario at the $\sim 4\sigma$ level. This latter result requires further observational follow-up to confirm.