Related papers: Interior dynamics of super-Earth 55 Cancri e
Super-Earths are highly irradiated, small planets with bulk densities approximately consistent with Earth. We construct combined interior-atmosphere models of super-Earths that trace the partitioning of water throughout a planet, including…
The study of exoplanets and especially their atmospheres can reveal key insights on their evolution by identifying specific atmospheric species. For such atmospheric investigations, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy has shown great…
The K2-33 planetary system hosts one transiting ~5 R_E planet orbiting the young M-type host star. The planet's mass is still unknown, with an estimated upper limit of 5.4 M_J. The extreme youth of the system (<20 Myr) gives the…
The ideal exoplanets to search for life are those within a star's habitable zone. However, even within the habitable zone planets can still develop uninhabitable climate states. Sustaining a temperate climate over geologic ($\sim$Gyr)…
The interior composition of exoplanets is not observable, limiting our direct knowledge of their structure, composition, and dynamics. Recently described observational trends suggest that rocky exoplanets, that is, planets without…
Super-Earths span a wide range of bulk densities, indicating a diversity in interior conditions beyond that seen in the solar system. In particular, an emerging population of low-density super-Earths may be explained by volatile-rich…
The tectonic regime of rocky planets fundamentally influences their long-term evolution and cycling of volatiles between interior and atmosphere. Earth is the only known planet with active plate tectonics, but observations of exoplanets may…
Ultra-hot giant exoplanets receive thousands of times Earth's insolation. Their high-temperature atmospheres (>2,000 K) are ideal laboratories for studying extreme planetary climates and chemistry. Daysides are predicted to be cloud-free,…
The outer envelopes of massive ($M\gtrsim10\,M_{\odot}$) stars exhibit large increases in opacities from forests of lines and ionization transitions (particularly from iron and helium) that trigger near-surface convection zones.…
The lower mantle of Earth, characterized by pressures of 24-127 GPa and temperatures of 1900-2600 K, is still inaccessible to direct observations. In this work, we investigate by first principles the stability, phase diagram, elastic…
We hypothesise that differences in the temperatures at which the rocky material condensed out of the nebula gas can lead to differences in the composition of key rocky species (e.g., Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, Al, Na) and thus planet bulk density.…
The recently discovered exoplanet Gl581d is extremely close to the outer edge of its system's habitable zone, which has led to much speculation on its possible climate. We have performed a range of simulations to assess whether, given…
Rocky planets are thought to form with a magma ocean that quickly solidifies. The horizontal and vertical extent of this magma ocean depends on the interior thermal evolution of the planet, and possibly exogenous processes such as planet…
Based on detailed 2D and 3D numerical radiation-hydrodynamics (RHD) simulations of time-dependent compressible convection, we have studied the dynamics and thermal structure of the convective surface layers of a prototypical late-type…
We report on the discovery of three transiting super-Earths around K2-155 (EPIC 210897587), a relatively bright early M dwarf ($V=12.81$ mag) observed during Campaign 13 of the NASA K2 mission. To characterize the system and validate the…
55 Cnc e is an ultra-short period super-Earth transiting a Sun-like star. Previous observations in the optical range detected a time-variable flux modulation that is phased with the planetary orbital period, whose amplitude is too large to…
Context. VX Sgr is a cool, evolved, and luminous red star whose stellar parameters are difficult to determine, which affects its classification. Aims. We aim to spatially resolve the photospheric extent as well as the circumstellar…
Of the over 800 exoplanets detected to date, over half are on non-circular orbits, with eccentricities as high as 0.93. Such orbits lead to time-variable stellar heating, which has implications for the planet's atmospheric dynamical regime.…
NGC 3115 is known as the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus which hosts the nearest ($z\sim0.002$) billion solar mass supermassive black hole ($\sim1.5\times10^9~M_\odot$). Its Bondi radius $r_\mathrm{B}$ ($\sim3\farcs6$) can be readily…
We investigate the physical characteristics of the Solar System's proposed Planet Nine using modeling tools with a heritage in studying Uranus and Neptune. For a range of plausible masses and interior structures, we find upper limits on the…