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The discovery of thousands of exoplanets and the emergence of telescopes capable of exoplanet atmospheric characterization have intensified the search for habitable worlds. Due to selection biases, many exoplanets under study are planets…
The ice giants Uranus and Neptune are the least understood class of planets in our solar system but the most frequently observed type of exoplanets. Presumed to have a small rocky core, a deep interior comprising ~70% heavy elements…
The formation of the giant planets in our solar system, and likely a majority of giant exoplanets, is commonly explained by the accretion of nebular hydrogen and helium onto a large core of terrestrial-like composition. The fate of this…
The internal structures of Uranus and Neptune remain unknown. In addition, sub-Neptunes are now thought to be the most common type of exoplanets. Understanding the physical processes that govern the interiors of such planets is therefore…
We know that giant planets played a crucial role in the making of our Solar System. The discovery of giant planets orbiting other stars is a formidable opportunity to learn more about these objects, what is their composition, how various…
The atmospheres of gaseous giant exoplanets orbiting close to their parent stars (hot Jupiters) have been probed for nearly two decades. They allow us to investigate the chemical and physical properties of planetary atmospheres under…
Using density functional molecular dynamics free energy calculations, we show that the body-centered-cubic phase of superionic ice previously believed to be the only phase is in fact thermodynamically unstable compared to a novel phase with…
Comparatively little is known about atmospheric chemistry on Uranus and Neptune, because remote spectral observations of these cold, distant ``Ice Giants'' are challenging, and each planet has only been visited by a single spacecraft during…
The chemical behavior of water under extreme pressures and temperatures lies at the heart of processes shaping planetary interiors, influences the deep carbon cycle, and underpins innovative high-temperature, high-pressure synthesis of…
The Ice Giants Uranus and Neptune have hydrogen-based atmospheres with several constituents that condense in their cold upper atmospheres. A small number of bright cloud systems observed in both planets are good candidates for moist…
We present the first evolving interior structure model for sub-Neptunes that accounts for the miscibility between silicate magma and hydrogen. Silicate and hydrogen are miscible above $\sim 4000$K at pressures relevant to sub-Neptune…
We study water-hydrogen mixtures under planetary interior conditions using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. We determine the thermodynamic properties of various water-hydrogen mixing ratios at temperatures of 2000 and 6000 K for…
Deep elemental composition is a challenging measurement to achieve in the giant planets of the solar system. Yet, knowledge of the deep composition offers important insights in the internal structure of these planets, their evolutionary…
A comprehensive exploration of Uranus and Neptune is essential to understand the formation and evolution of the giant planets, in particular, solar system, in general, and, by extension, a vast population of exoplanets. Though core…
Simulations of Jupiter's formation are presented that incorporate mixing of H-He with denser material entering the planet as solids. Heavy compounds and gas mix substantially when the planet becomes roughly as massive as Earth, because…
Recently there has been tremendous increase in the number of identified extra-solar planetary systems. Our understanding of their formation is tied to exoplanet internal structure models, which rely upon equations of state of light elements…
Models based on variable miscibility among hydrogen, molten silicate, and molten iron, coupled with atmospheric escape, can reproduce the observed occurrence density structure of sub-Neptunes and super-Earths in mass-radius space. The…
We present results from ab initio simulations of liquid water-hydrogen mixtures in the range from 2 to 70 GPa and from 1000 to 6000 K, covering conditions in the interiors of ice giant planets and parts of the outer envelope of gas giant…
Uranus and Neptune are the archetypes of "ice giants", a class of planets that may be among the most common in the Galaxy. They hold the keys to understand the atmospheric dynamics and structure of planets with hydrogen atmospheres inside…
The properties of hydrogen-helium mixtures at high pressure are crucial to address important questions about the interior of Giant planets e.g. whether Jupiter has a rocky core and did it emerge via core accretion? Using path integral Monte…