A Detailed Model Grid for Solid Planets from 0.1 through 100 Earth Masses

By L. Zeng, D. Sasselov. 2013

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article describes a new grid for the mass–radius relation of three-layer exoplanets within the mass range of 0.1–100 M⊕. The three layers are: Fe (!ϵ-phase of iron), MgSiO3 (including both the perovskite phase, post-perovskite phase, and its dissociation at ultrahigh pressures), and H2O (including Ices Ih, III, V, VI, VII, X, and the superionic phase along the melting curve). We discuss the current state of knowledge about the equations of state (EOS) that influence these calculations and the improvements used in the new grid. For the two-layer model, we demonstrate the utility of contours on the mass–radius diagrams. Given the mass and radius input, these contours can be used to quickly determine the important physical properties of a planet including its ! p0 (central pressure), ! p1/p0 (core–mantle boundary pressure over central pressure), CMF (core mass fraction) or CRF (core radius fraction). For the three-layer model, a curve segment on the ternary diagram represents all possible relative mass proportions of the three layers for a given mass–radius input. These ternary diagrams are tabulated with the intent to make comparison to observations easier. How the presence of Fe in the mantle affects the mass–radius relations is also discussed in a separate section. A dynamic and interactive tool to characterize and illustrate the interior structure of exoplanets built upon models in this article is available online.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/76d44fcbaa60cac443b26aa171822b7ebea85100

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Citations in the corpus

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE NEAR-IR TRANSMISSION SPECTROSCOPY OF THE SUPER-EARTH HD 97658B (2014, background): “…sample it is possible to match their measured densities with a broad range of compositions, including both waterrich and water-poor scenarios, simply by varying the amount of hydrogen in their atmospheres (Seager et al. 2007; Valencia et al. 2007, 2013; Rogers & Seager 2010a; Zeng & Sasselov 2013).”
How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life (2017, background): “Another group of exoplanets shown in Figure 1 consists of so-called super-Earths like Kepler-10c, a planet with approximately 18 M⊕ and 2.3 R⊕ (Dumusque et al. 2012), consistent with a rocky composition (see Zeng & Sasselov 2013).”
THE KEPLER-10 PLANETARY SYSTEM REVISITED BY HARPS-N: A HOT ROCKY WORLD AND A SOLID NEPTUNE-MASS PLANET (2014, methodology): “Kepler-10b and c might differ in their internal structure in the amount of Fe that is differentiated in their core; for the high mass of Kepler-10c full differentiation is questionable, but given its water content, the oxidation state of Fe is unclear (Zeng & Sasselov 2013).”
THE MASS OF Kepler-93b AND THE COMPOSITION OF TERRESTRIAL PLANETS (2014, methodology): “…predict that planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune could be gaseous “mini-Neptunes,” water worlds, or rocky “Super-Earths” (Kuchner 2003; Léger et al. 2004; Valencia et al. 2006; Seager et al. 2007; Fortney et al. 2007; Rogers et al. 2011; Lopez et al. 2012; Zeng & Sasselov 2013).”
MASS–RADIUS RELATION FOR ROCKY PLANETS BASED ON PREM (2015, methodology): “…in the Super-Earth domain are based largely on experience (and extrapolations) from the models of the rocky solar system planets, and mostly - the Earth (Valencia et al. 2006, 2007b,a; Fortney et al. 2007; Seager et al. 2007; Zeng & Seager 2008; Grasset et al. 2009; Zeng & Sasselov 2013).”
CHARACTERIZING K2 PLANET DISCOVERIES: A SUPER-EARTH TRANSITING THE BRIGHT K DWARF HIP 116454 (2014, methodology): “We also explored the composition of HIP 116454b assuming it is solid and has little in the way of a gaseous envelope using an online tool33, based on the model grids of Zeng & Sasselov (2013).”
Characterization of the K2-18 multi-planetary system with HARPS: A habitable zone super-Earth and discovery of a second, warm super-Earth on a non-coplanar orbit (2017, background): “9 we find that the internal structure of K2-18b is consistent with a range of two-component solidplanet models (Zeng & Sasselov 2013) owing to the uncertainty in its measured radius and mass which is at the level of ∼24%.”