Compositions of Hot Super-Earth Atmospheres: exploring Kepler Candidates

TL;DR

This paper presents a straightforward method to estimate the atmospheric compositions of hot super-Earths based on planetary composition and orbital parameters, aiding interpretation of Kepler candidates.

Contribution

It introduces a simple modeling approach to classify hot super-Earth atmospheres into five types based on initial composition and orbital distance.

Findings

Identified five distinct atmospheric types for hot super-Earths.

Atmospheric composition strongly depends on initial planetary makeup and proximity to host star.

Provided parameter set enables quick assessment of atmospheric properties for Kepler candidates.

Abstract

This paper outlines a simple approach to evaluate the atmospheric composition of hot rocky planets by assuming different types of planetary composition and using corresponding model calculations. To explore hot atmospheres above 1000 K, we model the vaporization of silicate magma and estimate the range of atmospheric compositions according to the planet's radius and semi-major axis for the Kepler February 2011 data release. Our results show 5 atmospheric types for hot, rocky super-Earth atmospheres, strongly dependent on the initial composition and the planet's distance to the star. We provide a simple set of parameters that can be used to evaluate atmospheric compositions for current and future candidates provided by the Kepler mission and other searches.