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Neptune-size exoplanets are less studied as characterizing their atmospheres presents challenges due to their relatively small radius and atmospheric scale height. As the most common outcome of planet formation, these planets are crucial…
With no analogues in the Solar System, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets with masses and radii intermediate between Earth and Neptune was one of the big surprises of exoplanet science. These super-Earths and sub-Neptunes likely…
It is now recognized that energetic stellar photon and particle radiation evaporates and erodes planetary atmospheres and controls upper atmospheric chemistry. Key exoplanet host stars will be too faint at X-ray wavelengths for accurate…
We consider the evaporation of close in planets by the star's intrinsic EUV and X-ray radiation. We calculate evaporation rates by solving the hydrodynamical problem for planetary evaporation including heating from both X-ray and EUV…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…
The long-term evolution of hydrogen-dominated atmospheres of sub-Neptune-like planets is mostly controlled by two factors: a slow dissipation of the gravitational energy acquired at the formation (known as thermal evolution) and atmospheric…
Many parameters constraining the spectral appearance of exoplanets are still poorly understood. We therefore study the properties of irradiated exoplanet atmospheres over a wide parameter range including metallicity, C/O ratio and host…
With observational efforts moving from the discovery into the characterisation mode, systematic campaigns that cover large ranges of global stellar and planetary parameters will be needed. We aim to uncover cloud formation trends and…
We have investigated the information content in reflected-starlight spectra of exoplanets. We specify our analysis to Barnard's Star b candidate super-Earth, for which we assume a radius 0.6 times that of Neptune, an atmosphere dominated by…
We use models of thermal evolution and XUV-driven mass loss to explore the composition and history of low-mass low-density transiting planets. We investigate the Kepler-11 system in detail and provide estimates of both the current and past…
Hot Jupiters might reside inside the Alfv\'en surface of their host star wind, where the stellar wind is dominated by magnetic energy. The implications of such a sub-Alfv\'enic environment for atmospheric escape are not fully understood.…
Context: The thermal and chemical structures of the upper atmospheres of planets crucially influence losses to space and must be understood to constrain the effects of losses on atmospheric evolution. Aims: We develop a 1D first-principles…
We study the interactions between stellar wind and the extended hydrogen-dominated upper atmospheres of planets and the resulting escape of planetary pick-up ions from the 5 "super-Earths" in the compact Kepler-11 system and compare the…
Young terrestrial planets, when they are still embedded in a circumstellar disk, accumulate an atmosphere of nebula gas. The evolution and eventual evaporation of the protoplanetary disk affect the structure and dynamics of the planetary…
The atmospheric chemical composition of a hot Jupiter can lead to insights into where in its natal protoplanetary disk it formed and its subsequent migration pathway. We use a 1-D chemical kinetics code to compute a suite of models across a…
This paper presents a hydrodynamic simulation that couples detailed non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) calculations of the hydrogen and helium level populations to model the H$\alpha$ and He 10830 transmission spectra of the hot…
What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…
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".…
This dissertation as a whole aims to provide means to better understand hot-Jupiter planets through observing, performing thermochemical calculations, and modeling their atmospheres. We used Spitzer multi-wavelength secondary-eclipse…
Planet formation models suggest broad compositional diversity in the sub-Neptune/super-Earth regime, with a high likelihood for large atmospheric metal content (> 100 x Solar). With this comes the prevalence of numerous plausible bulk…