English

TOI-333b: A Neptune Desert planet around a F7V star

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2026-01-28 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

Observations have shown that planets similar to Neptune are rarely found orbiting Sun-like stars with periods up to ~4 days, defining the so-called Neptune desert region. Therefore, the detection of each individual planet in this region holds a high value, providing detailed insights into how such a population came to form and evolve. Here we report the detection of TOI-333b, a Neptune desert planet with a mass, radius, and bulk density of 20.1 ±\pm 2.4 M_{\oplus}, 4.26 ±\pm 0.11 R_{\oplus}, and 1.42 ±\pm 0.21 \gccc, respectively. The planet orbits a F7V star every 3.78 d, whose mass, radius and effective temperature are of 1.2 ±\pm 0.1 \msun, 1.10 ±\pm 0.03 \rsun, and 624162+73^{+73}_{-62} K, respectively. TOI-333b is likely younger than 1 Gyr, which is supported by the presence of the doublet Li line around 6707.856 textup{~\AA} and its comparison to Li abundances in open clusters with well constrained ages. The planet is expected to host only 8.58.3+10.9%^{+10.9}_{-8.3}\% gas-to-core mass ratio for a H/He envelope. On the other hand, irradiated ocean world models predict 2010+11%^{+11}_{-10}\% H2_2O mass fraction with a core fraction of 3523+20%^{+20}_{-23}\%. Therefore, we expect that TOI-333b internal composition may be dominated by a pure rocky composition with almost no H/He envelope, or a rocky world with almost equal mass fraction of water. Finally, TOI-333b is more massive and larger than 77%\% and 82%\% of its Neptune desert counterparts, respectively, while its host ranks among the hottest known for Neptune Desert planets, making this system a unique laboratory to study the evolution of such planets around hot stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.13832,
  title  = {TOI-333b: A Neptune Desert planet around a F7V star},
  author = {Douglas R. Alves and James S. Jenkins and José I. Vinés and Maximilano Moyano and David R. Anderson and Christian Magliano and Giovanni Covone and Keivan G. Stassun and Abderahmane Soubkiou and Edward Gillen and Matthew P. Battley and Alexander Hughes and David J. Armstrong and Suman Saha and Faith Hawthorn and Peter J. Wheatley and Karen A. Collins and Richard P. Schwarz and Gregor Srdoc and Ioannis Apergis and Tafadzwa Zivave and Monika Lendl and Benjamin M. Tofflemire and John P. Doty and Christina Hedges and Ismael Mireles and Matthew R. Burleigh and Alicia Kendall and George T. Harvey and Michael R. Goad and Sarah L. Casewell and Troy Edkins},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.13832},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

21 pages, 19 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in A&A