Related papers: Exoplanetary Interiors
When a star is described as a spectral class G2V, we know its approximate mass, temperature, age, and size. At more than 5,700 exoplanets discovered, it is a natural developmental step to establish a classification for them, such as for…
The radius of a planet is a fundamental parameter that probes its composition and habitability. Precise radius measurements are typically derived from the fraction of starlight blocked when a planet transits its host star. The wide-field…
The research of exoplanets has entered an era in which we characterize extrasolar planets. This has become possible with measurements of radii and luminosities. Meanwhile, radial velocity surveys discover also very low-mass planets. Uniting…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
The radius distribution of small, close-in exoplanets has recently been shown to be bimodal. The photoevaporation model predicted this bimodality. In the photoevaporation scenario, some planets are completely stripped of their primordial…
Theoretical studies of giant planet formation suggest that substantial quantities of metals - elements heavier than hydrogen and helium - can be delivered by solid accretion during the envelope-assembly phase. This metal enhancement process…
Royal Society Discussion Meeting (2013) `Characterizing exoplanets'. Of the 900+ confirmed exoplanets discovered since 1995 for which we have constraints on their mass (i.e., not including Kepler candidates), 75% have masses larger than…
Several transiting super-Earths are expected to be discovered in the coming few years. While tools to model the interior structure of transiting planets exist, inferences about the composition are fraught with ambiguities. We present a…
The field of extrasolar planets has rapidly expanded to include the detection of planets with masses smaller than that of Uranus. Many of these are expected to have little or no hydrogen and helium gas and we might find Earth analogs among…
We construct models of the structural evolution of super-Earth- and mini-Neptune-type exoplanets with hydrogen-helium envelopes, incorporating radiative cooling and XUV-driven mass loss. We conduct a parameter study of these models,…
This work aims at exploring the scaling relations among rocky exoplanets. With the assumption of internal gravity increasing linearly in the core, and staying constant in the mantle, and tested against numerical simulations, a simple model…
We have computed evolutionary models for extrasolar planets which range in mass from 0.1 to 3.0 Jovian Masses, and which range in equilibrium temperature from 113 K to 2000 K. We present four sequences of models, designed to show the…
This article presents a review on the observations and theoretical modeling of the evaporation of extrasolar planets. The observations and the resulting constraints on the upper atmosphere (thermosphere and exosphere) of the "hot-Jupiters".…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
The relationship between the composition of rocky exoplanets and their host stars is fundamental to understanding planetary formation and evolution. However, previous studies have been limited by inconsistent datasets, observational biases…
The prospects for finding transiting exoplanets in the range of a few to 20 Earth masses is growing rapidly with both ground-based and spaced-based efforts. We describe a publicly available computer code to compute and quantify the…
Tremendous progress in the science of extrasolar planets has been achieved since the discovery of a Jupiter orbiting the nearby Sun-like star 51 Pegasi in 1995. Theoretical models have now reached enough maturity to predict the…
We present an inversion method based on Bayesian analysis to constrain the interior structure of terrestrial exoplanets, in the form of chemical composition of the mantle and core size. Specifically, we identify what parts of the interior…
Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…
Extrasolar planets that pass in front of their host star (transit) cause a temporary decrease in the apparent brightness of the star once per orbit, providing a direct measure of the planet's size and orbital period. In some systems with…