EXOPLANET HD209458b (OSIRIS∗): EVAPORATION STRENGTHENED

Following re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations of primary transits of the extrasolar planet HD209458b at Lyman α, Ben-Jaffel (2007, BJ007) claims that no sign of evaporation is observed. Here we show that, in fact, this new analysis is consistent with the one of Vidal-Madjar et al. (2003, VM003) and supports the detection of evaporation. The apparent disagreement is mainly due to the disparate wavelength ranges that are used to derive the transit absorption depth. VM003 derives a (15 ± 4)% absorption depth during transit over the core of the stellar Lyman α line (from −130 km/s to +100 km/s), and this result agrees with the (8.9 ± 2.1)% absorption depth reported by BJ007 from a slightly expanded dataset but over a larger wavelength range (± 200km/s). These measurements agree also with the (5±2)% absorption reported by Vidal-Madjar et al. (2004) over the whole Lyman α line from independent, lower-resolution data. We show that stellar Lyman α variability is unlikely to significantly affect those detections. The H i atoms must necessarily have velocities above the escape velocities and/or be outside the Roche lobe, given the lobe shape and orientation. Absorption by H i in HD209458b’s atmosphere has thus been detected with different datasets, and now with independent analyses. All these results strengthen the concept of evaporating hot-Jupiters, as well as the modelization of this phenomenon. Subject headings: planetary systems — stars: individual (HD 209458) — spectroscopy