A Temperature Trend for Clouds and Hazes in Exoplanets Atmospheres

The transmission spectra of exoplanet atmospheres observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in the near-infrared range (1.1-1.65$\mu$m) frequently show evidence for some combination of clouds and hazes. Identification of systematic trends in exoplanet clouds and hazes is potentially important for understanding atmospheric composition and temperature structure. Here we report on the analysis of spectral modulation using a large, uniformly processed sample of HST/WFC3 transit spectra from 62 exoplanets. The spectral retrieval includes the capability to detect and represent atmospheres in which the composition departs from thermochemical equilibrium. By using this unique catalog and measuring the dampening of spectral modulations compared to strictly clear atmospheres, we identify two populations. One is completely cloud/haze free spanning a wide temperature range, while the other population, identified as ``Partial cloud/hazes'', follows a trend from mostly cloudy/hazy around 500~K to mostly clear at $\sim$1500~K. We also find that a partially transparent aerosol component is frequently present and that it is typically vertically distributed throughout the atmospheric column. Our findings also suggest that while clouds and hazes are common in exoplanet atmospheres, the majority of planets have some level of detectable spectral modulation. Additionally, the empirical trend that clouds and hazes are minimized at 1460.86K$^{+316}_{-405}$ revealed in our catalog has predictive utility for modelling the performance of large-scale transiting exoplanets survey, such as planned with the Ariel mission. This trend can also be used for making a probability-based forecast of spectral modulation for a given source in the context of future JWST observations. Future observations including the optical and/or a broader spectral coverage may be useful to further quantify the trend reported here.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Apj

Impact of M-dwarf Stellar Wind and Photoevaporation on the Atmospheric Evolution of Small Planets

The evolution of a planet's atmosphere depends strongly on its host star's properties. When their host stars are younger, planets can experience stronger winds and EUV emissions. This is particularly true for planets orbiting M-dwarfs due to their close proximity to the host star. To determine if these planets retain an atmosphere, we consider the impacts from stellar wind and EUV fluxes in driving atmospheric escape throughout the planet's lifetime. For this, we determined the atmospheric mass loss due to stellar wind and photoevaporation on 4 planets in close orbit and 34 in their star's habitable zone (HZ). The M-dwarf host stars' wind velocity, density, and EUV flux were calculated through rotation period and X-ray flux scaling over time. The mass loss rate due to stellar wind and photoevaporation was then computed as a function of time and accumulated throughout the planet's age to determine the total atmospheric mass loss of the planet's initial H/He envelope. We find that for HZ planets at orbits $<$ 0.1 AU, stellar wind can only remove $\leq 1\%$ of the H/He envelope, while photoevaporation is essential for completely removing the H/He envelope of most targets. Moreover, due to either mechanism, most planets orbiting at $>$ 0.1 AU do not have their primordial envelope stripped. Overall, out of the 38 planets studied, 13 were predicted to have lost the primordial envelope due to photoevaporation, while 2 planets lost the envelope due to both stellar wind and photoevaporation.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, published in MNRA

An integrative, multi-scale, genome-wide model reveals the phenotypic landscape of Escherichia coli.

Given the vast behavioral repertoire and biological complexity of even the simplest organisms, accurately predicting phenotypes in novel environments and unveiling their biological organization is a challenging endeavor. Here, we present an integrative modeling methodology that unifies under a common framework the various biological processes and their interactions across multiple layers. We trained this methodology on an extensive normalized compendium for the gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli, which incorporates gene expression data for genetic and environmental perturbations, transcriptional regulation, signal transduction, and metabolic pathways, as well as growth measurements. Comparison with measured growth and high-throughput data demonstrates the enhanced ability of the integrative model to predict phenotypic outcomes in various environmental and genetic conditions, even in cases where their underlying functions are under-represented in the training set. This work paves the way toward integrative techniques that extract knowledge from a variety of biological data to achieve more than the sum of their parts in the context of prediction, analysis, and redesign of biological systems

Identificação de ciclos magnéticos em estrelas do tipo solar observadas pelo satélite Kepler

O campo magnético desempenha um papel crucial nos mecanismos internos da estrela, assim como também nas interações com o seu meio. O estudo das manchas estelares nos dá informações sobre o campo magnético da estrela, e caracteriza o seu ciclo de atividade. Além disso, a análise de estrelas do tipo solar é muito importante para se entender a origem do campo magnético solar. O objetivo deste trabalho é caracterizar o campo magnético dessas estrelas. Inicialmente, nós estudamos duas estrelas do tipo solar: Kepler-17 e Kepler-63. Dois métodos foram usados para estimar o período da atividade magnética. O primeiro deles caracteriza as manchas (raio e intensidade) ao ajustar pequenas variações nas curvas de luz da estrela causadas pela ocultação de uma mancha durante um trânsito planetário. Com este método obtemos o número de manchas presentes na superfície da estrela e o déficit do fluxo da estrela devido a presença das manchas durante o trânsito. O segundo método nos dá uma estimativa da atividade magnética a partir da análise dos excessos nos resíduos das curvas de trânsito. Este excesso é obtido ao subtrair um modelo sem manchas da curva de luz observada, e em seguida integrando todos os resíduos durante o trânsito. A presença de uma periodicidade de longa duração é obtida ao se aplicar o periodograma Lomb Scargle nas séries temporais. Com o primeiro método, nós obtivemos Pciclo = 1,12 0,16 ano (Kepler-17) e Pciclo = 1,27 0,16 ano (Kepler-63), enquanto que com o segundo os valores são de 1,35 0,27 ano e 1,27 0,12 ano, respectivamente. Os resultados de ambos os métodos estão em acordo e confirmam a eficácia dos mesmos. Por ser mais eficiente, aplicamos o segundo método para mais 4 estrelas observadas pelo Kepler e estimamos períodos de ciclos de curta duração. Os períodos obtidos são consistentes com os períodos de curta duração encontrados na literatura para outras estrelas análogas ao Sol.The stellar magnetic field plays a crucial role in the star internal mechanisms, as well as in the interactions with its environment. The study of starspots gives us information about the magnetic field of the star, and characterizes the cycle. Moreover, the analysis of solar-type stars is also useful to shed light onto the origin of the solar magnetic field. The objective of this work is to characterize the magnetic activity of stars. Initially, we studied two solar-type stars Kepler-17 and Kepler-63. Two methods were used to estimate the magnetic cycle length. The first one characterizes the spots (radius and intensity) by fitting the small variations in the light curve of a star caused by the occultation of a spot during a planetary transit. This approach yields the number of spots present in the stellar surface and the flux deficit subtracted from the star by their presence during each transit. The second method estimates the activity from the excess in the residuals of the transit lightcurves. This excess is obtained by subtracting a spotless model transit from the lightcurve, and then integrating all the residuals during the transit. The presence of long term periodicity is estimated from the analysis of a Lomb-Scargle periodogram of both time series. With the first method, we obtained Pcycle = 1.12 0.16 year (Kepler-17) and Pcycle = 1.27 0.16 year (Kepler-63), and for the second approach the values are 1.35 0.27 year and 1.27 0.12 year, respectively. Since the results of both methods agreed with each other, we used the second method to estimate short magnetic cycles of four more active stars with transiting planets observed by Kepler. These periods are consistent with short cycle periods of stars found in the literature.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superio

Detection of Aerosols at Microbar Pressures in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

Formation of hazes at microbar pressures has been explored by theoretical models of exoplanet atmospheres to explain Rayleigh scattering and/or featureless transmission spectra, however observational evidence of aerosols in the low pressure formation environments has proved elusive. Here, we show direct evidence of aerosols existing at $\sim$1 microbar pressures in the atmosphere of the warm sub-Saturn WASP-69b using observations taken with Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. The transmission spectrum shows a wavelength-dependent slope induced by aerosol scattering that covers 11 scale heights of spectral modulation. Drawing on the extensive studies of haze in our Solar System, we model the transmission spectrum based on a scaled version of Jupiter's haze density profile to show that WASP-69b transmission spectrum can be produced by scattering from an approximately constant density of particles extending throughout the atmospheric column from 40 millibar to microbar pressures. These results are consistent with theoretical expectations based on microphysics of the aerosol particles that have suggested haze can exist at microbar pressures in exoplanet atmospheres.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A