Related papers: Plasma physics and planetary astrophysics
This white paper, submitted for the Plasma 2020 Decadal Survey, concerns the physics of weakly collisional, high-beta plasmas -- plasmas in which the thermal pressure dominates over the magnetic pressure and in which the inter-particle…
A prediction of standard inflationary cosmology is that the elemental composition of the medium out of which the earliest stars and galaxies condensed consisted primarily of hydrogen and helium 4He with small admixtures of deuterium,…
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…
One of the most surprising discoveries of extrasolar planets is the detection of planets in moderately close binary star systems. The Jovian-type planets in the two binaries of Gamma Cephei and GJ 86 have brought to the forefront questions…
Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has been predominantly focused on rocky exoplanets. Hycean worlds are a class of habitable sub-Neptunes with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres. Their broad range of possible sizes…
The impact of the inner structure and thermal history of planets on their observable features, such as luminosity or magnetic field, crucially depends on the poorly known heat and charge transport properties of their internal layers. The…
Planetary habitability is in part determined by the atmospheric evolution of a planet; one key component of such evolution is escape of heavy ions to space. Ion loss processes are sensitive to the plasma environment of the planet, dictated…
Recent radial velocity observations have indicated that Jovian-type planets can exist in moderately close binary star systems. Numerical simulations of the dynamical stability of terrestrial-class planets in such environments have shown…
The study of planetary atmospheres is critical to our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Solar System. The combined effect of various physical and chemical processes over billions of years have resulted in a variety of…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
This tutorial is an introduction to techniques used to characterize the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. We intend it to be a useful guide for the undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral scholar who wants to begin research in…
Terrestrial planets in temperate orbits around very low mass stars are likely to have evolved in a very different way than solar system planets, and in particular Earth. However, because these are the first planets that are and will be…
I present an homogeneous determination of the physical properties of 14 transiting extrasolar planetary systems for which good data are available. The input quantities for each system are the results of the light curve analyses (Paper 1),…
This is a mini-review of recent theoretical work in the field of relativistic heavy ion physics. The following topics are discussed: initial conditions and the Color Glass Condensate; approach to thermalization and the hydrodynamical…
Astrophysical observations reveal a large diversity of radii and masses of exoplanets. It is important to characterize the interiors of exoplanets to understand planetary diversity and further determine how unique, or not, Earth is.…
To date, the ability for observers to reveal the composition or thermal structure of an exoplanet's atmosphere has rested on two techniques: high-contrast direct imaging and time-series observations of transiting exoplanets. The former is…
What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…
The internal structure of gas giant planets may be more complex than the commonly assumed core-envelope structure with an adiabatic temperature profile. Different primordial internal structures as well as various physical processes can lead…
Understanding the chemical interactions between water and Mg-silicates or iron is essential to constrain the interiors of water-rich planets. Hydration effects have, however, been mostly neglected by the astrophysics community so far. As…
Stars consume hydrogen in their interiors but, generally speaking, their surfaces continue to contain some 70% hydrogen (by mass) throughout their lives. Nevertheless, many types of star can be found with hydrogen-deficient surfaces, in…