Exploring the Sub-Neptune Frontier with JWST

Abstract

Sub-Neptune planets, with sizes and masses between those of Earth and Neptune, dominate the exoplanet population. Sub-Neptunes are expected to be the most diverse family of the exoplanet population, potentially including rocky gas dwarfs, water worlds, and mini-Neptunes, with a wide range of atmospheric, surface and interior conditions. With no analogue in the solar system, these planets open fundamental questions in planetary processes, origins, and habitability, and present new avenues in the search for life elsewhere. Atmospheric observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are enabling unprecedented characterization of sub-Neptunes, starting with the first detections of carbon-bearing molecules in the habitable zone sub-Neptune K2-18 b. We survey the present landscape of JWST observations and atmospheric inferences of sub-Neptunes, which in turn provide key insights into their atmospheric processes, internal structures, surface conditions, formation pathways and potential habitability. The atmospheric abundance constraints reveal evidence of chemical disequilibria, and insights into the planetary mass-metallicity relation in the sub-Neptune regime. Similarly, for sub-Neptunes with H$_2$O-rich interiors, increasing atmospheric H$_2$O abundances with the equilibrium temperature may indicate the existence of a critical temperature for transition from H$_2$ dominated atmospheres with tropospheric cold traps to those with steamy atmospheres. The chemical abundances also provide initial evidence for diverse planet types, from potentially habitable hycean worlds to steam worlds with super critical water layers. These planet types serve as benchmarks for an emerging taxonomy of volatile-rich sub-Neptunes as a function of their equilibrium temperature and atmospheric extent, heralding a new era of chemical classification of low-mass exoplanets with JWST.