Zodiacal exoplanets in time – XI. The orbit and radiation environment of the young M dwarf-hosted planet K2-25b
Eric Gaidos, Teruyuki Hirano, David J. Wilson, Kevin France, Keighley E. Rockcliffe, Elisabeth Newton, Gregory A. Feiden, Vigneshwaran Krishnamurthy, Hiroki Harakawa, K. W. Hodapp, Masato Ishizuka, Shane Jacobson, Mihoko Konishi, Takayuki Kotani, Tomoyuki Kudo, Takashi Kurokawa, Masayuki Kuzuhara, Jun Nishikawa, Masashi Omiya, Takuma Serizawa, Motohide Tamura, Akitoshi Ueda, Sébastien Vievard
Abstract
ABSTRACT M dwarf stars are high-priority targets for searches for Earth-size and potentially Earth-like planets, but their planetary systems may form and evolve in very different circumstellar environments than those of solar-type stars. To explore the evolution of these systems, we obtained transit spectroscopy and photometry of the Neptune-size planet orbiting the ≈650-Myr-old Hyades M dwarf K2-25. An analysis of the variation in spectral line shape induced by the Doppler ‘shadow’ of the planet indicates that the planet’s orbit is closely aligned with the stellar equator ($\lambda =-1.7_{-3.7}^{+5.8}$ deg), and that an eccentric orbit found by previous work could arise from perturbations by another planet on a coplanar orbit. We detect no significant variation in the depth of the He i line at 1083 nm during transit. A model of atmospheric escape as an isothermal Parker wind with a solar composition shows that this non-detection is not constraining compared to escape rate predictions of ∼0.1 M⊕ Gyr−1; at such rates, at least several Gyr are required for a Neptune-like planet to evolve into a rocky super-Earth.