Related papers: Exoplanetary Geophysics -- An Emerging Discipline
The field of exoplanetary science has diversified rapidly over recent years as the field has progressed from exoplanet detection to exoplanet characterization. For those planets known to transit, the primary transit and secondary eclipse…
Super-Earths, objects slightly larger than Earth and slightly smaller than Uranus, have found a special place in exoplanetary science. As a new class of planetary bodies, these objects have challenged models of planet formation at both ends…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
(Abridged) The discovery of extrasolar planetary systems revealed an unexpected diversity of planetary systems that has revolutionized planet formation theory. A strong program of theoretical research is essential to maximize both the…
Active small bodies in extrasolar systems, the extrasolar analogues of Solar System comets, provide insights into the orbital evolution and physical processes shaping planetary systems. Since the discovery of exocomets around $\beta$…
The ubiquity of planets and diversity of planetary systems reveal planet formation encompass many complex and competing processes. In this series of papers, we develop and upgrade a population synthesis model as a tool to identify the…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
A planetary mass scale and a system of composition codes are presented for describing the geophysical characteristics of exoplanets and Solar System planets, dwarf planets, and spherical moons. The composition classes characterize the rock,…
At the dawn of the first discovery of exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars in the mid-1990s, few believed that observations of exoplanet atmospheres would ever be possible. After the 2002 Hubble Space Telescope detection of a transiting…
The discovery of rings around extrasolar planets ("exorings") is one of the next breakthroughs in exoplanetary research. Previous studies have explored the feasibility of detecting exorings with present and future photometric sensitivities…
In order to characterize giant exoplanets and better understand their origin, knowledge of how the planet's composition depends on its mass and stellar environment is required. In this work, we simulate the thermal evolution of gaseous…
Ultra-short period (USP) planets are an enigmatic subset of exoplanets defined by having orbital periods $<$ 1 day. It is still not understood how USP planets form, or to what degree they differ from planets with longer orbital periods.…
The coupled interior-atmosphere system of terrestrial exoplanets remains poorly understood. Exoplanets show a wide variety of sizes, densities, surface temperatures, and interior structures, with important knock-on effects for this coupled…
Today's most detailed characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is accessible via transit spectroscopy (TS). Detecting transiting exoplanets only yields their size, and it is thus standard to measure a planet's mass before moving towards…
When a star is described as a spectral class G2V, we know its approximate mass, temperature, age, and size. At more than 5,700 exoplanets discovered, it is a natural developmental step to establish a classification for them, such as for…
The vast majority of known extrasolar planets orbit stars with a narrow range of masses (0.7-1.3 M_sun). Recent years have seen rapid growth in our knowledge about the properties of planetary systems with host stars significantly more…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
Interesting emerging observational properties of the period-mass distribution of extra-solar planets are discussed. New recent detections confirm the already emphasized lack of massive planets (m_2sini>=2M_Jup) on short-period orbits…
With the number of confirmed rocky exoplanets increasing steadily, their characterisation and the search for exoplanetary biospheres is becoming an increasingly urgent issue in astrobiology. We aim to investigate the possibility of…
We are still in the early days of exoplanet discovery. Astronomers are beginning to model the atmospheres and interiors of exoplanets and have developed a deeper understanding of processes of planet formation and evolution. However, we have…