The Variable Detection of Atmospheric Escape around the Young, Hot Neptune AU Mic b

Abstract

Photoevaporation is a potential explanation for several features within exoplanet demographics. Atmospheric escape observed in young Neptune-sized exoplanets can provide insight into and characterize which mechanisms drive this evolution and at what times they dominate. AU Mic b is one such exoplanet, slightly larger than Neptune (4.19 R _⊕ ). It closely orbits a 23 Myr pre-main-sequence M dwarf with an orbital period of 8.46 days. We obtained two visits of AU Mic b at Ly α with Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. One flare within the first HST visit is characterized and removed from our search for a planetary transit. We present a nondetection in our first visit, followed by the detection of escaping neutral hydrogen ahead of the planet in our second visit. The outflow absorbed ∼30% of the star’s Ly α blue wing 2.5 hr before the planet’s white-light transit. We estimate that the highest-velocity escaping material has a column density of 10 ^13.96 cm ^−2 and is moving 61.26 km s ^−1 away from the host star. AU Mic b’s large high-energy irradiation could photoionize its escaping neutral hydrogen in 44 minutes, rendering it temporarily unobservable. Our time-variable Ly α transit ahead of AU Mic b could also be explained by an intermediate stellar wind strength from AU Mic that shapes the escaping material into a leading tail. Future Ly α observations of this system will confirm and characterize the unique variable nature of its Ly α transit, which, combined with modeling, will tune the importance of stellar wind and photoionization.

Keywords

• Exoplanets
• Hot Neptunes
• Exoplanet atmospheric variability
• Exoplanet atmospheric dynamics