# Photo-evaporation of close-in gas giants orbiting around G and M stars

## TL;DR

This paper studies how high-energy radiation from G and M stars causes atmospheric evaporation in close-in gas giants, significantly affecting their mass and distribution over time.

## Contribution

It introduces a dynamical model of atmospheric escape that accounts for stellar evolution and predicts the changing distribution of close-in gas giants.

## Key findings

- Many low-mass gas giants vaporize within the first billion years.
- The initial frequency of sub-2 MJ planets is higher around young stars.
- Atmospheric mass loss significantly alters the planet population over time.

## Abstract

X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation impacting on a gas produce a variety of effects that, depending on the electron content, may provide a significant heating of the illuminated region. In a planetary atmosphere of solar composition, stellar high energy radiation may heat the gas to very high temperatures, that may have consequences on the stability of planetary atmospheres, in particular for close-in planets. We investigate the variations with stellar age in the occurring frequency of gas giant planets orbiting G and M stars, taking into account that the high energy luminosity of a low mass star evolves in time, both in intensity and hardness. Using the energy-limited escape approach we investigate the effects induced by the atmospheric mass loss on giant exoplanet distribution that is initially flat, at several distances from the parent star. We follow the dynamical evolution of the planet atmosphere, tracking the departures from the initial profile due to the atmospheric escape, until it reaches the final mass-radius configuration. We find that a significant fraction of low mass Jupiter-like planets orbiting with periods lower than ~3.5 days either vaporize during the first billion years, or lose a relevant part of their atmospheres. The planetary initial mass profile is significantly distorted; in particular, the frequency of occurrence of gas giants, less massive than 2 MJ, around young star can be considerably greater than the one around older stellar counterparts.