Related papers: A mineralogical reason why all exoplanets cannot b…
Discovery of only handful of exoplanets required to establish a correlation between giant planet occurrence and metallicity of their host stars. More than 20 years have already passed from that discovery, however, many questions are still…
Differentiation in terrestrial planets is expected to include the formation of a metallic iron core. We predict the existence of terrestrial planets that have differentiated but have no metallic core--planets that are effectively a giant…
The radius of an exoplanet may be affected by various factors, including irradiation, planet mass and heavy element content. A significant number of transiting exoplanets have now been discovered for which the mass, radius, semi-major axis,…
The metallicity of exoplanet systems serves as a critical diagnostic of planet formation mechanisms. Previous studies have demonstrated the planet-metallicity correlation for large planets ($R_P\ \geq\ 4\ R_E$); however, a correlation has…
Planets with 2 $R_{\oplus}$ < $R$ < 3 $R_{\oplus}$ and orbital period $<$100 d are abundant; these sub-Neptune exoplanets are not well understood. For example, $Kepler$ sub-Neptunes are likely to have deep magma oceans in contact with their…
Exoplanet interior modelling usually makes the assumption that the elemental abundances of a planet are identical to those of its host star. Host stellar abundances are good proxies of planetary abundances, but only for refractory elements.…
The atmospheres of small exoplanets likely derive from a combination of geochemical outgassing and primordial gases left over from formation. Secondary atmospheres, such as those of Earth, Mars and Venus, are sourced by outgassing.…
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 two primary observable quantities of an exoplanet--its mass and radius--alone are not sufficient to probe a rocky exoplanet's interior composition and mineralogy. To overcome this, host-star abundances of the primary planet-building…
Exoplanet properties depend on how well the host star is characterized. For instance, the stellar atmospheric parameters (i.e., effective temperature, surface gravity and overall metallicity) are needed to derive the stellar mass and radius…
Earth's tectonic processes regulate the formation of continental crust, control its unique deep water and carbon cycles, and are vital to its surface habitability. A major driver of steady-state plate tectonics on Earth is the sinking of…
Approximately half of the extrasolar planets (exoplanets) with radii less than four Earth radii are in orbits with short periods. Despite their sheer abundance, the compositions of such planets are largely unknown. The available evidence…
Atmospheric compositions can provide powerful diagnostics of formation and migration histories of planetary systems. We investigate constraints on atmospheric abundances of H$_2$O, Na, and K, in a sample of transiting exoplanets using…
The atmospheres of hot rocky exoplanets (HREs), should they persist, are products of interactions with underlying magma oceans. Spectra collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hint at a CO/CO$_2$-rich atmosphere on the HRE 55…
A primary goal of exoplanet characterization is to use a planet's current composition to understand how that planet formed. For example, the C/O ratio has long been recognized as carrying important information on the chemistry of volatile…
Terrestrial exoplanets likely form initial atmospheres through outgassing during and after accretion, although there is currently no first-principles understanding of how to connect a planet's bulk composition to its early atmospheric…
In order to characterize giant exoplanets and better understand their origin, knowledge of how the planet's composition depends on its mass and stellar environment is required. In this work, we simulate the thermal evolution of gaseous…
Iron oxides are fundamental components of planet-forming materials. Understanding the Fe-O system's behavior and properties under high pressure can help us identify many new phases and states possible in exoplanetary interiors, especially…
We provide estimates of atmospheric pressure and surface composition on short-period rocky exoplanets with dayside magma pools and silicate vapor atmospheres. Atmospheric pressure tends toward vapor-pressure equilibrium with surface magma,…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…