Amalia Karalis | Searcharxiv

arXiv2024

Separating Super-Puffs vs. Hot Jupiters Among Young Puffy Planets

Discoveries of close-in young puffy (R$_{\rm p} \gtrsim$ 6 R$_\oplus$) planets raise the question of whether they are bona fide hot Jupiters or puffed-up Neptunes, potentially placing constraints on the formation location and timescale of hot Jupiters. Obtaining mass measurements for these planets is challenging due to stellar activity and noisy spectra. Therefore, we aim to provide independent theoretical constraints on the masses of these young planets based on their radii, incident fluxes, and ages, benchmarking to the planets of age $<$1 Gyr detected by \textit{Kepler}, \textit{K2} and \textit{TESS}. Through a combination of interior structure models, considerations of photoevaporative mass loss, and empirical mass-metallicity trends, we present the range of possible masses for 22 planets of age $\sim$10-900 Myr and radii $\sim$6-16 R$_\oplus$. We generally find that our mass estimates are in agreement with the measured masses and upper limits where applicable. There exist some outliers including super-puffs Kepler-51 b, c and V1298 Tau d, b, e, for which we outline their likely formation conditions. Our analyses demonstrate that most of the youngest planets ($\lesssim$ 100 Myr) tend to be puffed-up, Neptune-mass planets, while the true hot Jupiters are typically found around stars aged at least a few hundred Myr, suggesting the dominant origin of hot Jupiters to be late-stage high eccentricity migration.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2022

Creating the Radius Gap without Mass Loss

The observed exoplanet population features a gap in the radius distribution that separates the smaller super-Earths ($\lesssim$1.7 Earth radii) from the larger sub-Neptunes ($\sim$1.7--4 Earth radii). While mass loss theories can explain many of the observed features of this radius valley, it is difficult to reconcile them with potentially rising population of terrestrials beyond orbital periods of $\sim$30 days. We investigate the ability of gas accretion during the gas-poor phase of disk evolution to reproduce both the location of the observed radius gap and the existence of long-period terrestrial planets. Updating the analytic scaling relations of gas accretion rate accounting for the shrinking of the bound radius by hydrodynamic effects and deriving a more realistic disk temperature profile, we find that the late-stage gas accretion alone is able to carve out the observed radius gap, with slopes $R_{\rm gap} \propto P^{-0.096}$ and $R_{\rm gap} \propto M_\star^{0.15}$ for top-heavy; and $R_{\rm gap} \propto P^{-0.089}$ and $R_{\rm gap} \propto M_\star^{0.22}$ for bottom-heavy core mass distributions, in good agreement with observations. The general morphology of the primordial radius gap is stable against a range of disk gas density and disk accretion rate with the latter affecting mostly the population of large planets ($\gtrsim$3--4$R_\oplus$). The peaks and valleys in the radius distribution were likely set in place primordially while post-formation mass loss further tunes the exoplanetary population. We provide potential observational tests that may be possible with TESS, PLATO and Roman Space Telescope.

astro-ph.EP↗