High-fidelity Reaction Kinetic Modeling of Hot-Jupiter Atmospheres Incorporating Thermal and UV Photochemistry Enhanced by Metastable CO(a3Π)

Abstract

A detailed modeling of simultaneous UV-photochemical and thermochemical processes in exoplanet atmosphere-like conditions is essential for the analysis and interpretation of a vast amount of current and future spectral data from exoplanets. However, a detailed reaction kinetic model that incorporates both UV photochemistry and thermal chemistry is challenging due to the massive size of the chemical system as well as the lack of understanding of photochemistry compared to thermal-only chemistry. Here, we utilize an automatic chemical reaction mechanism generator to build a high-fidelity thermochemical reaction kinetic model later then incorporated with UV photochemistry enhanced by metastable triplet-state carbon monoxide (a ^3 Π). Our model results show that two different photochemical reactions driven by Ly α photons (i.e., H _2 + CO(a ^3 Π) → H + HCO and CO(X ^1 Σ ^+ ) + CO(a ^3 Π) → C( ^3 P) + CO _2 ) can enhance thermal chemistry resulting in significant increases in the formation of CH _4 , H _2 O, and CO _2 in H _2 -dominated systems with trace amounts of CO, which qualitatively matches the observations from previous experimental studies. Our model also suggests that at temperatures above 2000 K, thermal chemistry becomes the dominant process. Finally, the chemistry simulated up to 2500 K does not produce any larger species such as C _3 species, benzene, or larger (i.e., PAHs). This might indicate that the photochemistry of C _2 species such as C _2 H _2 might play a key role in the formation of organic aerosols observed in a previous experimental study.

Keywords

• Exoplanet atmospheres
• Exoplanet atmospheric composition
• Theoretical models
• Hot Jupiters
• Planetary atmospheres
• Astrochemistry