Carbon-rich Planets: Atmospheric Spectra, Thermal Inversions, And Formation Conditions

Details Carbon-rich Planets: Atmospheric Spectra, Thermal Inversions, And Formation Conditions Carbon-rich Planets: Atmospheric Spectra, Thermal Inversions, And Formation Conditions

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21840201m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #402.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Carbon-rich planets (CRPs) are the exotic new members in the repertoire of extrasolar planets. The first CRP atmosphere was discovered recently, for the extremely irradiated hot Jupiter WASP-12b. In this work, we report several candidate carbon-rich planets amongst the known sample of transiting exoplanets, along with follow-up theoretical and observational efforts that aim at confirming these candidates. We also discuss the atmospheric chemistry and temperature structure of carbon-rich giant planets, their formation via core accretion, and the chemistry and apportionment of ices, rock, and volatiles in their envelopes.
Our results show that CRP atmospheres probe a unique region in composition space, especially at high T. For C/O ≥ 1, most of the oxygen is occupied by CO for T > 1400 K and P < 1bar, causing a substantial depletion in water vapor, and an overabundance of methane compared to equilibrium chemistry with solar abundances. Adopting gas phase elemental abundances in the disk similar to those estimated in the star gives a C/O ratio in planetesimals and then in the envelope of WASP-12b similar to or below the solar C/O. Under these conditions, a C/O ratio of 1 in WASP-12b would require that the oxygen abundance in the disk is depleted by a factor of 0.41.

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