Is the hot, dense sub-Neptune TOI-824b an exposed Neptune mantle? Spitzer detection of the hot day side and reanalysis of the interior composition
| Autor: | Roy, Pierre-Alexis, Benneke, Björn, Piaulet, Caroline, Crossfield, Ian J. M., Kreidberg, Laura, Dragomir, Diana, Deming, Drake, Werner, Michael W., Parmentier, Vivien, Christiansen, Jessie L., Dressing, Courtney D., Kane, Stephen R., Morales, Farisa Y. |
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| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4357/ac9f18 |
| Popis: | The Kepler and TESS missions revealed a remarkable abundance of sub-Neptune exoplanets. Despite this abundance, our understanding of the nature and compositional diversity of sub-Neptunes remains limited, to a large part because atmospheric studies via transmission spectroscopy almost exclusively aimed for low-density sub-Neptunes and even those were often affected by high-altitude clouds. The recent TESS discovery of the hot, dense TOI-824b ($2.93\,R_\oplus$ and $18.47\,M_\oplus$) opens a new window into sub-Neptune science by enabling the study of a dense sub-Neptune via secondary eclipses. Here, we present the detection of TOI-824b's hot day side via Spitzer secondary eclipse observations in the $3.6$ and $4.5\,\mathrm{\mu m}$ channels, combined with a reanalysis of its interior composition. The measured eclipse depths (142$^{+57}_{-52}$ and 245$^{+75}_{-77}$ ppm) and brightness temperatures (1463$^{+183}_{-196}$ and 1484$^{+180}_{-202}$ K) indicate a poor heat redistribution ($f>$ 0.49) and a low Bond albedo (A$_{B}<$ 0.26). We conclude that TOI-824b could be an "exposed Neptune mantle": a planet with a Neptune-like water-rich interior that never accreted a hydrogen envelope or that subsequently lost it. The hot day-side temperature is then naturally explained by a high-metallicity envelope re-emitting the bulk of the incoming radiation from the day side. TOI-824b's density is also consistent with a massive rocky core that accreted up to 1% of hydrogen, but the observed eclipse depths favor our high-metallicity GCM simulation to a solar-metallicity GCM simulation with a likelihood ratio of 7:1. The new insights into TOI-824b's nature suggest that the sub-Neptune population may be more diverse than previously thought, with some of the dense hot sub-Neptunes potentially not hosting a hydrogen-rich envelope as generally assumed for sub-Neptunes. Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, 14 pages, 5 figures |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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