The role of planetary formation and evolution in shaping the composition of exoplanetary atmospheres

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, the search for extrasolar planets revealed us the rich diversity of the outcomes of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In order to fully understand how these extrasolar planets came to be, however, the orbital and physical data we possess are not enough, and they need to be complemented with information on the composition of the exoplanets. Ground-based and space-based observations provided the first data on the atmospheric composition of a few extrasolar planets, but a larger and more detailed sample is required before we can fully take advantage of it. The primary goal of the Exoplanet Characterization Observatory (EChO) is to fill this gap, expanding the limited data we possess by performing a systematic survey of hundreds of extrasolar planets. The full exploitation of the data that EChO and other space-based and ground-based facilities will provide in the near future, however, requires the knowledge of what are the sources and sinks of the chemical species and molecules that will be observed. Luckily, the study of the past history of the Solar System provides several indications on the effects of processes like migration, late accretion and secular impacts, and on the time they occur in the life of planetary systems. In this work we will review what is already known about the factors influencing the composition of planetary atmospheres, focusing on the case of gaseous giant planets, and what instead still need to be investigated.

26 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication on Experimental Astronomy, special issue on the M3 EChO mission candidate

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• Listening to the gravitational wave sound of circumbinary exoplanets
• The contribution of the ARIEL space mission to the study of planetary formation
• The EChO science case
• Exploring the link between star and planet formation with Ariel
• Dust-to-gas ratio resurgence in circumstellar disks due to the formation of giant planets: the case of HD 163296
• Detectability of Planetesimal Impacts on Giant Exoplanets
• The homogeneous characterisation of Ariel host stars
• Prospects for detecting exoplanets around double white dwarfs with LISA and Taiji
• The GAPS program at TNG XLVII: The unusual formation history of V1298 Tau
• Why do more massive stars host larger planets?
• The late accretion and erosion of Vesta's crust recorded by eucrites and diogenites as an astrochemical window into the formation of Jupiter and the early evolution of the Solar System
• HD 163296 and its Giant Planets: Creation of Exo-comets, Interstellar Objects and Transport of Volatile Material
• The Compositional Dimension of Planet Formation
• Interpreting the atmospheric composition of exoplanets: sensitivity to planet formation assumptions
• Mercury-Ar$\chi$es: a high-performance n-body code for planet formation studies
• CARMENES detection of the CaII infrared triplet and possible evidence of HeI in the atmosphere of WASP-76b