Related papers: Giant Planet Interior Structure and Thermal Evolut…
Recent analyses have shown that the concluding stages of giant planet formation are accompanied by the development of large-scale meridional flow of gas inside the planetary Hill sphere. This circulation feeds a circumplanetary disk that…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
Recent observations started revealing the compositions of protostellar discs and planets beyond the Solar System. In this paper, we explore how the compositions of terrestrial planets are affected by dynamical evolution of giant planets. We…
Giant planets dominate the mass of many planetary systems, including the Solar System, and represent the best-characterized class of extrasolar planets. Understanding the formation of giant planets bridges the high mass end of the planet…
Favored theories of giant planet formation center around two main paradigms, namely the core accretion model and the gravitational instability model. These two formation scenarios support the hypothesis that the giant planet metallicities…
While Jupiter's massive gas envelope consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, the key to understanding Jupiter's formation and evolution lies in the distribution of the remaining (heavy) elements. Before the Juno mission, the lack of…
Aims: The secondary atmospheres of terrestrial planets form and evolve as a consequence of interaction with the interior over geological time. We aim to quantify the influence of planetary bulk composition on the interior--atmosphere…
The rate at which giant planets accumulate solids and gas is a critical component of planet formation models, yet it is extremely challenging to predict from first principles. Characterizing the heavy element (everything other than hydrogen…
Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, and together with silica, they are major components of giant planets. Exploring the reactivity and state of helium and silica under high pressure is of fundamental importance for…
We calculate the evolution of gas giant planets during the runaway gas accretion phase of formation, to understand how the luminosity of young giant planets depends on the accretion conditions. We construct steady-state envelope models, and…
Gas giants are the most readily detectable exoplanets but fundamental questions about their system architectures, formation, migration, and atmospheres have been unanswerable with the current generation of ground- and space-based…
Equilibrium properties of hydrogen-helium mixtures under thermodynamic conditions found in the interior of giant gas planets are studied by means of density functional theory molecular dynamics simulations. Special emphasis is placed on the…
Uranus and Neptune, the so-called "ice giants", represent a fascinating class of planets. They are the outermost planets in the solar system with intermediate masses/sizes, complex non-polar magnetic fields, strong atmospheric winds, and…
Atmospheric compositions for rocky exoplanets will depend strongly on the bulk planetary composition and the orbital position of the planet. Non-traditional gases may be present in the atmospheres of exceptionally hot planets. Atmospheres…
The standard picture of planet formation posits that giant gas planets are over-grown rocky planets massive enough to attract enormous gas atmospheres. It has been shown recently that the opposite point of view is physically plausible: the…
Giant planets are expected to form within circumstellar disks, which shape their formation history and the local environment. Here, we consider the formation and structure of circumplanetary disks that arise during the late stages of giant…
The mid-infrared spectral region provides a unique window into the atmospheric temperature, chemistry, and dynamics of the giant planets. From more than a century of mid-infrared remote sensing, progressively clearer pictures of the…
Many evolutionary models of giant exoplanets still rely on simplifying assumptions that are no longer adequate given detailed constraints from Jupiter, Saturn, and modern exoplanet observations. Here, we identify the key physical…
The composition of Jupiter and the primordial distribution of the heavy elements are determined by its formation history. As a result, in order to constrain the primordial internal structure of Jupiter the growth of the core and the…
Hydrogen, helium, silicates, and iron are key building blocks of rocky and gas-rich planets, yet their chemical interactions remain poorly constrained. Using first-principles molecular dynamics and thermodynamic integration, we quantify…