Transmission Spectroscopy with the ACE-FTS Infrared Spectral Atlas of Earth: A Model Validation and Feasibility Study

Infrared solar occultation measurements are well established for remote sensing of Earth's atmosphere, and the corresponding primary transit spectroscopy has turned out to be valuable for characterization of extrasolar planets. Our objective is an assessment of the detectability of molecular signatures in Earth's transit spectra. To this end, we take a limb sequence of representative cloud-free transmission spectra recorded by the space-borne ACE-FTS Earth observation mission (Hughes et al., ACE infrared spectral atlases of the Earth's atmosphere, JQSRT 2014) and combine these spectra to the effective height of the atmosphere. These data are compared to spectra modeled with an atmospheric radiative transfer line-by-line infrared code to study the impact of individual molecules, spectral resolution, the choice of auxiliary data, and numerical approximations. Moreover, the study serves as a validation of our infrared radiative transfer code. The largest impact is due to water, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, nitrogen, nitric acid, oxygen, and some chlorofluorocarbons (CFC11 and CFC12). The effect of further molecules considered in the modeling is either marginal or absent. The best matching model has a mean residuum of 0.4 km and a maximum difference of 2 km to the measured effective height. For a quantitative estimate of visibility and detectability we consider the maximum change of the residual spectrum, the relative change of the residual norm, the additional transit depth, and signal-to-noise ratios for a JWST setup. In conclusion, our study provides a list of molecules that are relevant for modeling transmission spectra of Earth-like exoplanets and discusses the feasibility of retrieval.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, 3 table

Evolution and Spectral Response of a Steam Atmosphere for Early Earth with a coupled climate-interior model

The evolution of Earth's early atmosphere and the emergence of habitable conditions on our planet are intricately coupled with the development and duration of the magma ocean phase during the early Hadean period (4 to 4.5 Ga). In this paper, we deal with the evolution of the steam atmosphere during the magma ocean period. We obtain the outgoing longwave radiation using a line-by-line radiative transfer code GARLIC. Our study suggests that an atmosphere consisting of pure H$_{2}$O, built as a result of outgassing extends the magma ocean lifetime to several million years. The thermal emission as a function of solidification timescale of magma ocean is shown. We study the effect of thermal dissociation of H$_{2}$O at higher temperatures by applying atmospheric chemical equilibrium which results in the formation of H$_{2}$ and O$_{2}$ during the early phase of the magma ocean. A 1-6\% reduction in the OLR is seen. We also obtain the effective height of the atmosphere by calculating the transmission spectra for the whole duration of the magma ocean. An atmosphere of depth ~100 km is seen for pure water atmospheres. The effect of thermal dissociation on the effective height of the atmosphere is also shown. Due to the difference in the absorption behavior at different altitudes, the spectral features of H$_{2}$ and O$_{2}$ are seen at different altitudes of the atmosphere. Therefore, these species along with H$_{2}$O have a significant contribution to the transmission spectra and could be useful for placing observational constraints upon magma ocean exoplanets.Comment: 22 pages, 17 Figures, accepted for publication in ApJ on March

The habitability of stagnant-lid Earths around dwarf stars

The habitability of a planet depends on various factors, such as delivery of water during the formation, the co-evolution of the interior and the atmosphere, as well as the stellar irradiation which changes in time. Since an unknown number of rocky exoplanets may operate in a one-plate convective regime, i.e., without plate tectonics, we aim at understanding under which conditions planets in such a stagnant-lid regime may support habitable surface conditions. Understanding the interaction of the planetary interior and outgassing of volatiles with the atmosphere in combination with the evolution of the host star is crucial to determine the potential habitability. M-dwarf stars in particular possess a high-luminosity pre-main sequence phase which endangers the habitability of planets around them via water loss. We therefore explore the potential of secondary outgassing from the planetary interior to rebuild a water reservoir allowing for habitability at a later stage. We compute the boundaries of the habitable zone around M, K, G, and F-dwarf stars using a 1D cloud-free radiative-convective climate model accounting for the outgassing history of CO2 and H2O from an interior evolution and outgassing model for different interior compositions and stellar luminosity evolutions. The outer edge of the habitable zone strongly depends on the amount of CO2 outgassed from the interior, while the inner edge is mainly determined via the stellar irradiation, as soon as a sufficiently large water reservoir has been outgassed. A build-up of a secondary water reservoir for planets around M-dwarf stars is possible even after severe water loss during the high luminosity pre-main sequence phase as long as some water has been retained within the mantle. Earth-like stagnant-lid planets allow for habitable surface conditions within a continuous habitable zone that is dependent on interior composition.Comment: 15 pages, accepted by A&A, abstract shortene

Sensitivity of Biosignatures on Earth-like Planets orbiting in the Habitable Zone of Cool M-Dwarf Stars to varying Stellar UV Radiation and Surface Biomass Emissions

We find that variations in the UV emissions of cool M-dwarf stars have a potentially large impact upon atmospheric biosignatures in simulations of Earth-like exoplanets i.e. planets with Earths development, and biomass and a molecular nitrogen-oxygen dominated atmosphere. Starting with an assumed black-body stellar emission for an M7 class dwarf star, the stellar UV irradiation was increased stepwise and the resulting climate-photochemical response of the planetary atmosphere was calculated. Results suggest a Goldilocks effect with respect to the spectral detection of ozone. At weak UV levels, the ozone column was weak (due to weaker production from the Chapman mechanism) hence its spectral detection was challenging. At strong UV levels, ozone formation is stronger but its associated stratospheric heating leads to a weakening in temperature gradients between the stratosphere and troposphere, which results in weakened spectral bands. Also, increased UV levels can lead to enhanced abundances of hydrogen oxides which oppose the ozone formation effect. At intermediate UV (i.e. with x10 the stellar UV radiative flux of black body Planck curves corresponding to spectral class M7) the conditions are just right for spectral detection. Results suggest that the planetary O3 profile is sensitive to the UV output of the star from about(200-350) nm. We also investigated the effect of increasing the top-of-atmosphere incoming Lyman-alpha radiation but this had only a minimal effect on the biosignatures since it was efficiently absorbed in the uppermost planetary atmospheric layer, mainly by abundant methane. Earlier studies have suggested that the planetary methane is an important stratospheric heater which critically affects the vertical temperature gradient, hence the strength of spectral emission bands

Spectral features of Earth-like planets and their detectability at different orbital distances around F, G, and K-type stars

We investigate the spectral appearance of Earth-like exoplanets in the HZ of different main sequence stars at different orbital distances. We furthermore discuss for which of these scenarios biomarker absorption bands may be detected during primary or secondary transit with near-future telescopes and instruments.We analyze the spectra taking into account different filter bandpasses of two photometric instruments planned to be mounted to the JWST. We analyze in which filters and for which scenarios molecular absorption bands are detectable when using the space-borne JWST or the ground-based telescope E-ELT. Absorption bands of CO2, H2O, CH4 and O3 are clearly visible in high-resolution spectra as well as in the filters of photometric instruments. However, only during primary eclipse bands of CO2, H2O and O3 are detectable for all scenarios when using photometric instruments and an E-ELT telescope setup. CH4 is only detectable at the outer HZ of the K star since here the atmospheric modeling results in very high abundances. Since the detectable CO2 and H2O bands overlap, separate bands need to be observed to prove their existence in the atmosphere. In order to detect H2O in a separate band, a S/N>7 needs to be achieved for E-ELT observations, e.g. by co-adding at least 10 transit observations. Using a spaceborne telescope like the JWST enables the detection of CO2 at 4.3mu, which is not possible for ground-based observations due to the Earth's atmospheric absorption. Hence combining observations of spaceborne and groundbased telescopes might allow to detect the presence of the biomarker molecule O3 and the related compounds H2O and CO2 in a planetary atmosphere. Other absorption bands using the JWST can only be detected for much higher S/Ns, which is not achievable by just co-adding transit observations since this would be far beyond the planned mission time of JWST.(abridged)Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

What factors affect the duration and outgassing of the terrestrial magma ocean?

The magma ocean (MO) is a crucial stage in the build-up of terrestrial planets. Its solidification and the accompanying outgassing of volatiles set the conditions for important processes occurring later or even simultaneously, such as solid-state mantle convection and atmospheric escape. To constrain the duration of a global-scale Earth MO we have built and applied a 1D interior model coupled alternatively with a grey H2O/CO2 atmosphere or with a pure H2O atmosphere treated with a line-by-line model described in a companion paper by Katyal et al. (2019). We study in detail the effects of several factors affecting the MO lifetime, such as the initial abundance of H2O and CO2, the convection regime, the viscosity, the mantle melting temperature, and the longwave radiation absorption from the atmosphere. In this specifically multi-variable system we assess the impact of each factor with respect to a reference setting commonly assumed in the literature. We find that the MO stage can last from a few thousand to several million years. By coupling the interior model with the line-by-line atmosphere model, we identify the conditions that determine whether the planet experiences a transient magma ocean or it ceases to cool and maintains a continuous magma ocean. We find a dependence of this distinction simultaneously on the mass of the outgassed H2O atmosphere and on the MO surface melting temperature. We discuss their combined impact on the MO's lifetime in addition to the known dependence on albedo, orbital distance and stellar luminosity and we note observational degeneracies that arise thereby for target exoplanets

Machine learning inference of the interior structure of low-mass exoplanets

We explore the application of machine learning based on mixture density neural networks (MDNs) to the interior characterization of low-mass exoplanets up to 25 Earth masses constrained by mass, radius, and fluid Love number $k_2$. We create a dataset of 900$\:$000 synthetic planets, consisting of an iron-rich core, a silicate mantle, a high-pressure ice shell, and a gaseous H/He envelope, to train a MDN using planetary mass and radius as inputs to the network. For this layered structure, we show that the MDN is able to infer the distribution of possible thicknesses of each planetary layer from mass and radius of the planet. This approach obviates the time-consuming task of calculating such distributions with a dedicated set of forward models for each individual planet. While gas-rich planets may be characterized by compositional gradients rather than distinct layers, the method presented here can be easily extended to any interior structure model. The fluid Love number $k_2$ bears constraints on the mass distribution in the planets' interior and will be measured for an increasing number of exoplanets in the future. Adding $k_2$as an input to the MDN significantly decreases the degeneracy of the possible interior structures.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Detectability of biosignatures on LHS 1140 b

Terrestrial extrasolar planets around low-mass stars are prime targets when searching for atmospheric biosignatures with current and near-future telescopes. The habitable-zone Super-Earth LHS 1140 b could hold a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere and is an excellent candidate for detecting atmospheric features. In this study, we investigate how the instellation and planetary parameters influence the atmospheric climate, chemistry, and spectral appearance of LHS 1140 b. We study the detectability of selected molecules, in particular potential biosignatures, with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). In a first step we use the coupled climate-chemistry model, 1D-TERRA, to simulate a range of assumed atmospheric chemical compositions dominated by H$_2$ and CO$_2$. Further, we vary the concentrations of CH$_4$ by several orders of magnitude. In a second step we calculate transmission spectra of the simulated atmospheres and compare them to recent transit observations. Finally, we determine the observation time required to detect spectral bands with low resolution spectroscopy using JWST and the cross-correlation technique using ELT. In H$_2$-dominated and CH$_4$-rich atmospheres O$_2$ has strong chemical sinks, leading to low concentrations of O$_2$ and O$_3$. The potential biosignatures NH$_3$, PH$_3$, CH$_3$Cl and N$_2$O are less sensitive to the concentration of H$_2$, CO$_2$ and CH$_4$ in the atmosphere. In the simulated H$_2$-dominated atmosphere the detection of these gases might be feasible within 20 to 100 observation hours with ELT or JWST, when assuming weak extinction by hazes. If further observations of LHS 1140 b suggest a thin, clear, hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, the planet would be one of the best known targets to detect biosignature gases in the atmosphere of a habitable-zone rocky exoplanet with upcoming telescopes.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

Atmospheric Characterization via Broadband Color Filters on the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) Mission

We assess broadband color filters for the two fast cameras on the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations (PLATO) of stars space mission with respect to exoplanetary atmospheric characterization. We focus on Ultra Hot Jupiters and Hot Jupiters placed 25pc and 100pc away from the Earth and low mass low density planets placed 10pc and 25pc away. Our analysis takes as input literature values for the difference in transit depth between the broadband lower (500 to 675nm) wavelength interval (hereafter referred to as blue) and the upper (675-1125nm) broadband wavelength interval (hereafter referred to as red) for transmission, occultation and phase curve analyses. Planets orbiting main sequence central stars with stellar classes F, G, K and M are investigated. We calculate the signal-to-noise ratio with respect to photon and instrument noise for detecting the difference in transit depth between the two spectral intervals. Results suggest that bulk atmospheric composition and planetary geometric albedos could be detected for (Ultra) Hot Jupiters up to about 100pc (about 25pc) with strong (moderate) Rayleigh extinction. Phase curve information could be extracted for Ultra Hot Jupiters orbiting K and G dwarf stars up to 25pc away. For low mass low density planets, basic atmospheric types (primary and water-dominated) and the presence of sub-micron hazes in the upper atmosphere could be distinguished for up to a handful of cases up to about 10pc.Comment: accepted in Experimental Astronomy April 202

Effect of mantle oxidation state and escape upon the evolution of Earth's magma ocean atmosphere

The magma ocean period was a critical phase determining how Earth atmosphere developed into habitability. However there are major uncertainties in the role of key processes such as outgassing from the planetary interior and escape of species to space that play a major role in determining the atmosphere of early Earth. We investigate the influence of outgassing of various species and escape of H$_2$ for different mantle redox states upon the composition and evolution of the atmosphere for the magma ocean period. We include an important new atmosphere-interior coupling mechanism namely the redox evolution of the mantle which strongly affects the outgassing of species. We simulate the volatile outgassing and chemical speciation at the surface for various redox states of the mantle by employing a C-H-O based chemical speciation model combined with an interior outgassing model. We then apply a line-by-line radiative transfer model to study the remote appearance of the planet in terms of the infrared emission and transmission. Finally, we use a parameterized diffusion-limited and XUV energy-driven atmospheric escape model to calculate the loss of H$_2$ to space. We have simulated the thermal emission and transmission spectra for reduced or oxidized atmospheres present during the magma ocean period of Earth. Reduced or thin atmospheres consisting of H$_2$ in abundance emit more radiation to space and have larger effective height as compared to oxidized or thick atmospheres which are abundant in H$_2$O and CO$_2$. We obtain the outgassing rates of H2 from the mantle into the atmosphere to be a factor of ten times larger than the rates of diffusion-limited escape to space. Our work presents useful insight into the development of Earth atmosphere during the magma ocean period as well as input to guide future studies discussing exoplanetary interior compositions.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publicatio