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Atmospheric escape is now considered the major contributing factor in shaping the demographic of detected exoplanets. However, inferences about the exoplanet populations strongly depend on the accuracy of the models. Direct observational…
An important evolutionary pathway for planetary atmospheres is escape to space, which has been studied on Earth and Mars for several decades and more recently in exoplanets. A particularly important regime is the hydrodynamic escape,…
Warm Neptune- and sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets in orbits smaller than Mercury's are thought to have experienced extensive atmospheric evolution. Here we propose that a potential outcome of this atmospheric evolution is the formation of…
Recent James Webb Space Telescope observations of cool, rocky exoplanets reveal a probable lack of thick atmospheres, suggesting prevalent escape of the secondary atmospheres formed after losing primordial hydrogen. Yet, simulations…
Intense X-ray and ultraviolet stellar irradiation can heat and inflate the atmospheres of closely orbiting exoplanets, driving mass outflows that may be significant enough to evaporate a sizable fraction of the planet atmosphere over the…
The evolution of exoplanetary atmospheres is strongly influenced by atmospheric escape, particularly for close-in planets. Fractionation during atmospheric loss can preferentially remove lighter elements such as hydrogen, while retaining…
Studies of planetary atmospheric composition, variability, and evolution require appropriate theoretical and numerical tools to estimate key atmospheric parameters, among which the mass-loss rate is often the most important. In evolutionary…
The most productive tracer of exoplanetary atmospheric escape is the measurement of excess absorption in the near-infrared metastable helium triplet during transits. Atmospheric escape of a close-in planet's atmosphere plays a role in its…
Observational breakthroughs in the exoplanet field of the last decade motivated the development of numerous theoretical models describing atmospheres and mass loss, which is believed to be one of the main drivers of planetary evolution. We…
In the present series of papers we propose a consistent description of the mass loss process. To study the effects of intrinsic magnetic field of a close-orbit giant exoplanet (so-called Hot Jupiter) on the atmospheric material escape and…
The habitability of the surface of any planet is determined by a complex evolution of its interior, surface, and atmosphere. The electromagnetic and particle radiation of stars drive thermal, chemical and physical alteration of planetary…
Short-period sub-Neptunes are common in extrasolar systems. These sub-Neptunes are generally thought to have primary atmospheres of protoplanetary-disk gas origin. However, atmospheric escape followed by degassing from their interiors can…
Atmospheric escape driven by extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation is a critical process shaping the evolution of close-in exoplanets. Recent observations have detected helium triplet absorption in numerous (>20) close-in exoplanets,…
The internal composition of sub-Neptunes remains a prominent unresolved question in exoplanetary science. We present a technique to place constraints on envelope mean molecular weight that utilises observations of escaping hydrogen or…
Recent exoplanet statistics indicate that photo-evaporation has a great impact on the mass and bulk composition of close-in low-mass planets. While there are many studies addressing photo-evaporation of hydrogen-rich or water-rich…
Planetary habitability is in part determined by the atmospheric evolution of a planet; one key component of such evolution is escape of heavy ions to space. Ion loss processes are sensitive to the plasma environment of the planet, dictated…
The loss of close-in planetary atmospheres is influenced by various physical processes, such as photoionisation, which could potentially affect the atmosphere survivability on a secular timescale. The amount of stellar radiation converted…
Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) driven atmospheric escape is a key process in the atmospheric evolution of close-in exoplanets. In many evolutionary models, the energy-limited mass-loss rate with a constant efficiency (typically $\sim10\%$) is…
Thermally-driven atmospheric escape evolves from an organized outflow (hydrodynamic escape) to escape on a molecule by molecules basis (Jeans escape) with increasing Jeans parameter, the ratio of the gravitational to thermal energy of…
Predicting the rate of escape and thermal structure of Pluto's upper atmosphere in preparation for the New Horizons Spacecraft encounter in 2015 is important for planning and interpreting the expected measurements. Having a moderate Jeans…