Related papers: Atmosphere loss in planet-planet collisions
The majority of discovered exoplanetary systems harbour a new class of planets, bodies typically several times more massive than Earth but orbiting their host stars well inside the orbit of Mercury. The origin of these close-in super-Earths…
Exoplanets with substantial Hydrogen/Helium atmospheres have been discovered in abundance, many residing extremely close to their parent stars. The extreme irradiation levels these atmospheres experience causes them to undergo hydrodynamic…
Collisions between centimeter- to decimeter-sized dusty bodies are important to understand the mechanisms leading to the formation of planetesimals. We thus performed laboratory experiments to study the collisional behavior of dust…
In the core accretion paradigm of planet formation, gas giants only form a massive atmosphere after their progenitors exceeded a threshold mass: the critical core mass. Most (exo)planets, being smaller and rock/ice-dominated, never crossed…
Cometary impacts play an important role in the early evolution of Earth, and other terrestrial exoplanets. Here, we present a numerical model for the interaction of weak, low-density cometary impactors with planetary atmospheres, which…
The giant impact phase of terrestrial planet formation establishes connections between super-Earths' orbital properties (semimajor axis spacings, eccentricities, mutual inclinations) and interior compositions (the presence or absence of…
We present a uniform analysis of the atmospheric escape rate of Neptune-like planets with estimated radius and mass (restricted to $M_{\rm p}<30\,M_{\oplus}$). For each planet we compute the restricted Jeans escape parameter, $\Lambda$, for…
It is observed that hypervelocity space dust, which is continuously bombarding the Earth, creates immense momentum flows in the atmosphere. Some of this fast space dust inevitably will interact with the atmospheric system, transferring…
Kepler's observations show most of the exoplanets are super-Earths. The formation of super-Earth is generally related to the atmospheric mass loss that is crucial in the planetary structure and evolution. The shock driven by the giant…
Amongst the many hundreds of transiting planet candidates discovered by the Kepler Mission, one finds a large number of candidates with sizes between that of the Earth and Neptune. The composition of these worlds is not immediately obvious…
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 observed mass-radius relationship of low-mass planets informs our understanding of their composition and evolution. Recent discoveries of low mass, large radii objects ("super-puffs") have challenged theories of planet formation and…
Since the mass loss rates are the function of the mean density of the planet and the stellar irradiation, we calculated about 450 models covering planets with different densities and stellar irradiation. Our results show that the mass loss…
We perform a suite of smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to investigate in detail the results of a giant impact on the young Uranus. We study the internal structure, rotation rate, and atmospheric retention of the post-impact…
Strong atmospheric escape has been detected in several close-in exoplanets. As these planets consist mostly of hydrogen, observations in hydrogen lines, such as Ly-alpha and H-alpha, are powerful diagnostics of escape. Here, we simulate the…
We employ planetary evolution modeling to reproduce the MR distribution of the 198 so far detected planets with mass and radius measured to the <45% and <15% level, respectively, and less massive than 108Me. We simultaneously account for…
As the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres proceeds, providing insights into atmospheric chemistry and composition, a key question is how much deeper into the planet we might be able to see from its atmospheric properties alone. For…
The mass loss rates of planets undergoing core-powered escape are usually modeled using an isothermal Parker-type wind at the equilibrium temperature, $T_\mathrm{eq}$. However, the upper atmospheres of sub-Neptunes may not be isothermal if…
NASA's Kepler mission discovered $\sim700$ planets in multi-planet systems containing 3 or more transiting bodies, many of which are super-Earths and mini-Neptunes in compact configurations. Using $N$-body simulations, we examine the in…
Recent observations of rocky super-Earths have revealed an apparent wider distribution of Fe/Mg ratios, or core to mantle ratios, than the planets in our Solar System. This study aims to understand how much of the chemical diversity in the…