Related papers: Unveiling the Planet Population at Birth
The atmospheres of small, close-in exoplanets are vulnerable to rapid mass-loss during protoplanetary disc dispersal via a process referred to as `boil-off', in which confining pressure from the local gas disc reduces, inducing atmospheric…
Out of the more than 5,000 detected exoplanets a considerable number belongs to a category called 'mini-Neptunes'. Interior models of these planets suggest that they have some primordial, H-He dominated atmosphere. As this type of planet…
Small planets ($\sim$1--3.9 $\Rearth$) constitute more than half of the inventory of the 4000-plus exoplanets discovered so far. Smaller planets are sufficiently dense to be rocky, but those with radii larger than $\sim$1.6 $\Rearth$ are…
We assess the potential of planet formation instigating the early formation of a photoevaporation driven gap, up to radii larger than typical for photoevaporation alone. For our investigation we make use of hydrodynamics models of…
We present a model of the early chemical composition and elemental abundances of planetary atmospheres based on the cumulative gaseous chemical species that are accreted onto planets forming by core accretion from evolving protoplanetary…
The radius valley (or gap) in the observed distribution of exoplanet radii, which separates smaller super-Earths from larger sub-Neptunes, is a key feature that theoretical models must explain. Conventionally, it is interpreted as the…
We discuss a hydrodynamical model for the dispersal of protoplanetary discs around young, low mass (<1.5 M_sun) stars by photoevaporation from the central object's energetic radiation, which considers the far-ultraviolet as well as the…
This paper constructs a theoretical framework for calculating the distribution of masses for gas giant planets forming via the core accretion paradigm. Starting with known properties of circumstellar disks, we present models for the…
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…
Photo-evaporative mass loss sculpts the atmospheric evolution of tightly-orbiting sub-Neptune-mass exoplanets. To date, models of the mass loss from warm Neptunes have assumed that the atmospheric abundances remain constant throughout the…
In the standard model for giant planet formation, the planetary growth begins with accretion of solids followed by a buildup of a gaseous atmosphere as more solids are accreted, and finally, by rapid accretion of gas. The interaction of the…
One of the most challenging problems we face in our understanding of planet formation is how Jupiter and Saturn could have formed before the the solar nebula dispersed. The most popular model of giant planet formation is the so-called 'core…
Proto-planets embedded in their natal disks acquire hot envelopes as they grow and accrete solids. This ensures that the material they accrete - pebbles, as well as (small) planetesimals - will vaporize to enrich their atmospheres.…
The planetary mass-radius diagram is an observational result of central importance to understand planet formation. We present an updated version of our planet formation model based on the core accretion paradigm which allows to calculate…
As the number of planetary mass objects (PMOs, $\lessapprox$13 M$_{\rm{Jupiter}}$) at wider separation ($\gtrapprox$10 AU) grows, there is emerging evidence that they form differently from their higher-mass brown-dwarf (BD) counterparts.…
We calculate the evolution of cloud cores embedded in different envelopes to investigate environmental effects on the mass accretion rate onto protostars. As the initial state, we neglect the magnetic field and cloud rotation, and adopt…
Massive giant planets, such as the ones being discovered by direct imaging surveys, likely experience the majority of their growth through a circumplanetary disc. We argue that the entropy of accreted material is determined by boundary…
We examine the predictions of the core accretion - gas capture model concerning the efficiency of planet formation around stars with various masses. First, we follow the evolution of gas and solids from the moment when all solids are in the…
The Core Accretion model is widely accepted as the primary mechanism for forming planets up to a few Jupiter masses. However, the formation of super-massive planets remains a subject of debate, as their formation via the Core Accretion…
We study the formation of rocky planets by dry pebble accretion from self-consistent dust-growth models. In particular, we aim at computing the maximum core mass of a rocky planet that can sustain a thin H-He atmosphere to account for the…