Related papers: Unveiling the Planet Population at Birth
Observations in the past decade have revealed extrasolar planets with a wide range of orbital semimajor axes and eccentricities. Based on the present understanding of planet formation via core accretion and oligarchic growth, we expect that…
In the core accretion model, gas-giant planets first form a solid core, which then accretes gas from a protoplanetary disk when the core exceeds a critical mass. Here, we model the atmosphere of a core that grows by accreting ice-rich…
Massive planetary cores embedded in protoplanetary discs are believed to accrete extended atmospheres, providing a pathway to forming gas giants and gas-rich super-Earths. The properties of these atmospheres strongly depend on the nature of…
Atmospheric mass-loss is known to play a leading role in sculpting the demographics of small, close-in exoplanets. Knowledge of how such planets evolve allows one to ``rewind the clock'' to infer the conditions in which they formed. Here,…
We show that photoevaporation of small gaseous exoplanets ("mini-Neptunes") in the habitable zones of M dwarfs can remove several Earth masses of hydrogen and helium from these planets and transform them into potentially habitable worlds.…
The EUV/X-ray photoevaporation and core-powered mass-loss models are both capable of reproducing the bimodality in the sizes of small, close-in exoplanets observed by the \textit{Kepler} space mission, often referred to as the "radius gap".…
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…
Simulations predict that hot super-Earth sized exoplanets can have their envelopes stripped by photo-evaporation, which would present itself as a lack of these exoplanets. However, this absence in the exoplanet population has escaped a firm…
Numerical models have shown that disc dispersal via internal photoevaporation driven by the host star can successfully reproduce the observed pile-up of warm Jupiters near 1-2 au. However, since a range of different mechanisms have been…
The bulk composition of an exoplanet is commonly inferred from its average density. For small planets, however, the average density is not unique within the range of compositions. Variations of a number of important planetary…
The formation of the Earth's core is a consequence of planetary accretion and processes in the Earth's interior. The mechanical process of planetary differentiation is likely to occur in large, if not global, magma oceans created by the…
Massive and water-rich planets should be ubiquitous in the universe. Many of those worlds are expected to be subject to important irradiation from their host star, and display supercritical water layers surrounded by extended steam…
The high density of the close-in extrasolar planet HD149026b suggests the presence of a huge core in the planet, which challenges planet formation theory. We first derive constraints on the amount of heavy elements and hydrogen/helium…
A low-mass companion to the two-solar mass star HIP65426 has recently been detected by SPHERE at around 100 au from its host. Explaining the presence of super-Jovian planets at large separations, as revealed by direct imaging, is currently…
A large fraction of giant planets have gaseous envelopes that are limited to about 10 % of their total mass budget. Such planets are present in the Solar System (Uranus, Neptune) and are frequently observed in short periods around other…
The nature of sub-Neptunes remains unknown due to degeneracies in interior structure solutions. However, a statistical set of small planets with measured masses and radii can be used to test the planet formation theory prediction of large…
Atmospheric chemical abundances of giant planets lead to important constraints on planetary formation and migration. Studies have shown that giant planets that migrate through the protoplanetary disk can accrete substantial amounts of…
The observed exoplanet population features a gap in the radius distribution that separates the smaller super-Earths ($\lesssim$1.7 Earth radii) from the larger sub-Neptunes ($\sim$1.7--4 Earth radii). While mass loss theories can explain…
Photoevaporation from high energy stellar radiation has been thought to drive the dispersal of protoplanetary discs. Different theoretical models have been proposed, but their predictions diverge in terms of the rate and modality at which…
(Abridged) The chemical composition of planetary atmospheres has long been thought to store information regarding where and when a planet accretes its material. Predicting this chemical composition theoretically is a crucial step in linking…