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Ice-rich planets are formed exterior to the water ice-line and thus are expected to contain a substantial amount of ices. The high ice content leads to unique conditions in the interior, under which the structure of a planet is affected by…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-03-09 Allona Vazan , Re'em Sari , Ronit Kessel

Sub-Neptunes with substantial atmospheres may possess magma oceans in contact with the overlying gas, with chemical interactions between the atmosphere and magma playing an important role in shaping atmospheric composition. Early JWST…

It remains to be ascertained whether sub-Neptune exoplanets primarily possess hydrogen-rich atmospheres or whether a population of H$_2$O-rich "water worlds" lurks in their midst. Addressing this question requires improved modeling of…

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-03-18 Edwin S. Kite , Bruce Fegley , Laura Schaefer , Eric Ford

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-11-21 Issei Kobayashi , Hiroyuki Kurokawa , Laura Schaefer , Satoshi Okuzumi

The observed masses and radii of sub-Neptunes are typically explained by the gas dwarf and the water world scenarios. While their evolutionary history on a population level has been proposed as a method to distinguish between these…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-04-06 Marie-Luise Steinmeyer , Caroline Dorn , Aaron Werlen , Simon L. Grimm

From an astrobiological point of view, special attention has been paid to the probability of habitable planets in extrasolar systems. The purpose of this study is to constrain a possible range of the mass of a terrestrial planet that can…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Masahiro Ikoma , Hidenori Genda

The demographics of sub-Jovian planets around low-mass stars is dominated by populations of ``sub-Neptunes" and ``super-Earths", distinguished by the presence or absence of envelopes of low-molecular weight volatiles, i.e., H2, He, and H2O.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-04-16 Tatsuya Yoshida , Eric Gaidos

The characterization of Super-Earth-to-Neptune sized exoplanets relies heavily on our understanding of their formation and evolution. In this study, we link a model of planet formation by pebble accretion to the planets' long-term…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-07-24 A. Vazan , C. W. Ormel , M. G. Brouwers

Here we investigate how small amounts of hydrogen (much smaller than the mass of the exoplanet) above a magma ocean on a rocky exoplanet may modify the atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric escape.We use a chemical model of a magma ocean…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-07-05 Sébastien Charnoz , Aurélien Falco , Pascal Tremblin , Paolo Sossi , Razvan Caracas , Pierre-Olivier Lagage

Exoplanets with substantial Hydrogen/Helium atmospheres have been discovered in abundance, many residing extremely close to their parent stars. The extreme irradiation levels these atmospheres experience causes them to undergo hydrodynamic…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-06-12 James E. Owen

Terrestrial planets, with silicate mantles and metallic cores, are likely to obtain water and carbon compounds during accretion. Here I examine the conditions that allow early formation of a surface water ocean (simultaneous with cooling to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2010-11-12 Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

We present the first evolving interior structure model for sub-Neptunes that accounts for the miscibility between silicate magma and hydrogen. Silicate and hydrogen are miscible above $\sim 4000$K at pressures relevant to sub-Neptune…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-12-03 James G. Rogers , Edward D. Young , Hilke E. Schlichting

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-12 Renyu Hu , Sara Seager , Yuk L. Yung

Sub-Neptunes represent the largest exoplanet demographic, yet their bulk compositions remain poorly understood. Recent studies suggested that only very cold planets, such as Uranus and Neptune, could experience stratification of volatiles…

Planets less massive than about 10 MEarth are expected to have no massive H-He atmosphere and a cometary composition (50% rocks, 50% water, by mass) provided they formed beyond the snowline of protoplanetary disks. Due to inward migration,…

The potential presence of a magma surface below a thick atmosphere primarily composed of hydrogen in some sub-Neptune exoplanets suggests a strong link between the interior composition and atmosphere through chemical coupling of volatile…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-08-22 Elspeth K. H. Lee , Aaron Werlen , Caroline Dorn

Astrophysical measurements have shown that some stars have sufficiently high carbon-to-oxygen ratios such that the planets they host would be mainly composed of carbides instead of silicates. We studied the behavior of silicon carbide in…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-09-01 H. Allen-Sutter , E. Garhart , K. Leinenweber , V. Prakapenka , E. Greenberg , S. -H. Shim

Sub-Neptunes are the most common type of detected exoplanet, yet their observed masses and radii are degenerate with several interior structures. One possibility is that sub-Neptunes have silicate/iron interiors and H$_2$-dominated…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-04-27 Robb Calder , Oliver Shorttle , Harrison Nicholls , Tim Lichtenberg , Claire-Marie Guimond

Planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune, and orbiting closer to their host stars than Mercury does the Sun, are the most common type of planet revealed by exoplanet surveys over the last quarter century. Results from…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-02-10 Jacob L. Bean , Sean N. Raymond , James E. Owen