The Impact-driven Atmospheric Loss of Super-Earths around Different Spectral Type Host Stars

The planet’s mass loss is important for the planet’s formation and evolution. The radius valley (RV) is believed to be triggered by evaporation-induced mass loss.

As an alternative mechanism for the RV, the mass loss of post-impact planets is thoroughly investigated in this work. The impact energy is converted to the planet’s internal energy, enhancing its core energy and accelerating mass loss and orbital migration.

As the host star changes from K-type to F-type, the planet’s mass loss and orbital migration increase. When the initial gas-to-core mass ratio (GCR) is small, the migration efficiency for planets around K-type stars will increase, which helps to suppress mass loss and retain the planet’s mass and radius within a specific range. On the contrary, planets around more massive F-type stars experience more substantial mass loss, potentially leading to complete mass loss, and migrate to orbits with longer periods.

Our calculation shows that planets around different spectral types of host stars give rise to an RV ranging from 1.3-2.0 R_⊕, consistent with the observed range of 1.3-2.6 R_⊕. Despite the presence of uncertain parameters, the planetesimal impact can promote the RV establishment for planets around host stars of different spectral types.

Wei Zhong, Cong Yu, Shi Jia, Shang-Fei Liu

Comments: 19 pages, 12 figures; ApJ Accepted
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2404.03333 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2404.03333v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Wei Zhong
[v1] Thu, 4 Apr 2024 10:01:40 UTC (461 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.03333
Astrobiology,