Related papers: Atmosphere Origins for Exoplanet Sub-Neptunes
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 initial abundance of radioactive heat producing isotopes in the interior of a terrestrial planet are important drivers of its thermal evolution and the related tectonics and possible evolution to an Earth-like habitat. The moderately…
Sub-Neptunes are among the most common type of close-in planets found in our galaxy, yet their bulk composition remains largely uncertain; H-rich envelopes overlaying rocky cores, volatile-rich planets, and carbon-rich interiors all remain…
Since planet occurrence and primordial atmospheric retention probability increase with period, the occurrence-weighted median planets discovered by transit surveys may bear little resemblance to the low-occurrence, short-period planets…
Observed high multiplicity planetary systems are often tightly packed. Numerical studies indicate that such systems are susceptible to dynamical instabilities. Dynamical instabilities in close-in tightly packed systems, similar to those…
Some super Earths and mini Neptunes will likely have thick atmospheres that are not H2-dominated. We have developed a photochemistry-thermochemistry kinetic-transport model for exploring the compositions of thick atmospheres on super Earths…
The atmospheres of exoplanets reveal all their properties beyond mass, radius, and orbit. Based on bulk densities, we know that exoplanets larger than 1.5 Earth radii must have gaseous envelopes, hence atmospheres. We discuss contemporary…
Many planets in the solar system and across the galaxy have hydrogen-rich atmospheres overlying more heavy element-rich interiors with which they interact for billions of years. Atmosphere-interior interactions are thus crucial to…
The recent discovery and initial characterization of sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets that receive stellar irradiance of approximately Earth's raised the prospect of finding habitable planets in the coming decade, because some of these…
Super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are the most abundant types of planets among the ~3500 confirmed exoplanets, and are expected to exhibit a wide variety of atmospheric compositions. Recent transmission spectra of super-Earths and…
With no analogues in the Solar System, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets with masses and radii intermediate between Earth and Neptune was one of the big surprises of exoplanet science. These super-Earths and sub-Neptunes likely…
The oxidation of rocky planet surfaces and atmospheres, which arises from the twin forces of stellar nucleosynthesis and gravitational differentiation, is a universal process of key importance to habitability and exoplanet biosignature…
We calculated an atmospheric grid for hot mini-Neptune and giant exoplanets, that links astrophysical observable parameters- orbital distance and stellar type- with the chemical atmospheric species expected. The grid can be applied to…
The population of small, close-in exoplanets is bifurcated into super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. We calculate physically motivated mass-radius relations for sub-Neptunes, with rocky cores and H/He dominated atmospheres, accounting for their…
The observed masses and radii of sub-Neptunes are typically explained by the gas dwarf and the water world scenarios. While their evolutionary history on a population level has been proposed as a method to distinguish between these…
Understanding the evolution of Earth and potentially habitable Earth-like worlds is essential to fathom our origin in the Universe. The search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone and investigation of their atmospheres with climate…
We present a search for helium in the upper atmospheres of three sub-Neptune size planets to investigate the origins of these ubiquitous objects. The detection of helium for a low density planet would be strong evidence for the presence of…
The demographics of sub-Jovian planets around low-mass stars is dominated by populations of ``sub-Neptunes" and ``super-Earths", distinguished by the presence or absence of envelopes of low-molecular weight volatiles, i.e., H2, He, and H2O.…
The recent advancements in exoplanet observations enable the potential detection of exo-Venuses, rocky planets with carbon-rich atmospheres. How extended these atmospheres can be, given high carbon abundances, has not been studied. To…
Sub-Neptune planets formed in the protoplanetary disk accreted hydrogen-helium (H,He) envelopes. Planet formation models of sub-Neptunes formed by pebble accretion result in small rocky cores surrounded by polluted H,He envelopes where most…