Monitoring of the D doublet of neutral sodium during transits of two ‘evaporating’ planets

Abstract

Spectroscopic transit detection of constituents in winds from ‘evaporating’ planets on close-in transiting orbits could provide desperately needed information on the composition, formation, and orbital evolution of such objects. We obtained high-resolution optical spectra of the host stars during a single transit of Kepler-1520b and two transits of K2-22b to search for transient, Doppler-shifted absorption in the D lines of neutral sodium. Sodium should be released in the same silicate vapour wind that lofts the dust responsible for the periodic ‘dips’ in the light curve. We do not detect any absorption lines with depths >30 per cent at the predicted Doppler-shifted wavelengths during any of the transits. Detection sensitivity is limited by instrumental resolution that dilutes the saturated lines, and blurring of the lines by Doppler acceleration due to the short orbital period of the planet and long integration times for these faint stars. A model of neutral sodium production, escape, and ionization by UV radiation suggests that clouds of partially ionized sodium that are comparable in size to the host stars and optically thick in the D lines could accompany the planets. We consider the prospects for future detections brought about by the TESS all-sky survey of brighter stars and the advent of high-resolution spectrographs on Extremely Large Telescopes.