17 papers
Thermal Evolution of Lava Planets Across System Ages: Predictions for Hell of a Survey
Mariana Sastre, Tim Lichtenberg, Lisa Dang +22
Ultra-short-period (USP) rocky exoplanets can have dayside temperatures high enough to maintain permanent magma oceans, sitting at the intersection of interior geophysics and atmos…
Evolutionary pathways toward survival of a thick CO2- or SO2-rich atmosphere on the lava world TOI-561 b
Emma Postolec, Tim Lichtenberg, Johanna K. Teske +10
Rocky planets evolve through the exchange of volatiles between their interiors and atmospheres, an interplay still poorly constrained by observations. Remarkably, highly irradiated…
Atmospheric escape fractionates secondary but not primary atmospheres
Mara Attia, Tim Lichtenberg
A planet's atmosphere, heated by starlight, can flow off as a wind, taking some gases and leaving others in unknown proportions. Yet this selection wrote the noble-gas records of t…
A Highly Reflective Atmosphere on the Lava World TOI-561b Revealed by JWST/NIRSpec Phase Curve
Samuel Boucher, Lisa Dang, Alex McGinty +15
Ultra-short period (USP) rocky planets are expected to be depleted of any substantial gaseous envelope due to the intense irradiation they receive from their host star, making the…
Characterizing the oxidation state of rocky exoplanets with the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE)
Lorenzo Cesario, Tim Lichtenberg, Michiel Min +5
The oxidation state of rocky exoplanets is expected to play a fundamental role in shaping the chemical composition of their secondary atmospheres by influencing the chemical compos…
Constraining the lives and times of exoplanets through evolutionary Bayesian retrievals
Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg, Ben Riegler +2
Static retrieval frameworks are leading tools for interpreting exoplanet observations, yet time-independent modelling leaves them prone to degeneracy and unable to resolve exoplane…
Sulfur photochemistry observationally traces mantle redox states of rocky planets
Ioannis Panagiotou, Tim Lichtenberg, Shang-Min Tsai +1
Volatile outgassing from planetary interiors controls the composition of rocky exoplanets' secondary atmospheres. However, observations indicate that disequilibrium processes, such…
Atmospheric evolution through outgassing and escape on young molten rocky exoplanets
Emma Postolec, Tim Lichtenberg, Harrison Nicholls +2
The earliest rocky planet atmospheres are shaped by competition between initial volatile inventories and atmospheric escape. On young magma ocean planets, outgassing competes with…
Reflation: redox-driven atmospheric inflation as tracer of super-Earth geochemistry
Lorenzo Cesario, Tim Lichtenberg, Mara Attia +3
We demonstrate that the redox-sensitivity of mantle outgassing can trigger transient episodes of atmospheric re-inflation in highly irradiated and geochemically-reduced super-Earth…
Coupled atmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI). I. Evolutionary Modelling -- Primordial Magma Oceans of Earth and Venus
Harrison Nicholls, Joshua Krissansen-Totton, Tim Lichtenberg +22
Earth and Venus represent two evolutionary outcomes arising from initially molten 'magma ocean' periods, followed by lifetimes of chemical and geophysical divergence. Their physics…
Geophysical and atmospheric implications of O-dependent melting on rocky exoplanets
Mariana Sastre, Tim Lichtenberg, Laurent Soucasse +3
The geochemical evolution of long-lived magma oceans is strongly regulated by volatile exchange between the molten mantle and the atmosphere. For planets inside the runaway-greenho…
PALEOS: Multiphase equations of state and mass-radius relations for exoplanet interiors
Mara Attia, Tim Lichtenberg, Ema Jungová +1
Modeling the interior of a rocky or water-rich exoplanet is a thermodynamic closure problem: every layer's density, temperature gradient, and phase must follow from an equation of…
Beyond the mass-radius plane: Integrated radiative-convective and interior structure simulations of the exoplanet continuum
Harrison Nicholls, Oliver Shorttle, Tim Lichtenberg +1
Static structure models, which map mass-radius constraints to bulk planet composition, are frequently used to categorise exoplanets due to their computational efficiency and the hi…
Water enrichment of forming sub-Neptune envelopes limited by oxygen exhaustion
Tadahiro Kimura, Tim Lichtenberg
The interaction between a magma ocean and a primordial atmosphere is increasingly recognized as a key process in shaping planetary envelope compositions. This coupling should stron…
Mantle Convection and Nightside Volcanism on Lava World K2-141 b
Tobias G. Meier, Claire Marie Guimond, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert +13
Ultra-short period lava worlds offer a unique window into the coupled evolution of planetary interior and atmospheres under extreme irradiation. In this study, we investigate the m…
Most Rocky Sub-Neptunes are Molten: Mapping the Solidification Shoreline for Gas Dwarf Exoplanets
Robb Calder, Oliver Shorttle, Harrison Nicholls +2
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-Neptun…
Coupled atmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI) Protocol Version 1.0: A CUISINES Intercomparison Project of Magma Ocean Models
Tim Lichtenberg, Laura Schaefer, Joshua Krissansen-Totton +23
Spectroscopic characterization of rocky exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope has brought the origin and evolution of their atmospheres into the focus of exoplanet science…