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Hydrogen-dominated upper atmosphere of an exoplanet: Heating by stellar radiation from soft X-rays to extreme ultraviolet

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Abstract

A study is presented of how the upper atmosphere of a planet is heated by extreme radiation from the parent star, depending on the distribution of the radiation flux in the soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) ranges. Calculations are performed to find the efficiency of heating by stellar X-ray to EUV radiation in a hydrogen-dominated upper atmosphere for the extrasolar gas giant HD 209458b. It is shown that heating efficiency by extreme stellar UV radiation in a hydrogen-dominated upper atmosphere does not exceed 20–25% at the main thermospheric heights given that the calculation takes into account the photoelectron impact. It is found that an increase in the X-ray flux by several orders of magnitude leads to a slight decrease in the heating efficiency.

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  1. Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    D. E. Ionov & V. I. Shematovich

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  1. D. E. Ionov
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  2. V. I. Shematovich
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Correspondence to V. I. Shematovich.

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Original Russian Text © D.E. Ionov, V.I. Shematovich, 2015, published in Astronomicheskii Vestnik, 2015, Vol. 49, No. 5, pp. 373–379.

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Ionov, D.E., Shematovich, V.I. Hydrogen-dominated upper atmosphere of an exoplanet: Heating by stellar radiation from soft X-rays to extreme ultraviolet. Sol Syst Res 49, 339–345 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0038094615050056

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