English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Recent observations identify a valley in the radius distribution of smallexoplanets, with planets in the range $1.5-2.0\,{\rm R}_{\oplus}$ significantlyless common than somewhat smaller or larger planets. This valley may suggest abimodal population of rocky planets that are either engulfed by massive gasenvelopes that significantly enlarge their radius, or do not have detectableatmospheres at all. One explanation of such a bimodal distribution isatmospheric erosion by high-energy stellar photons. We investigate analternative mechanism: the luminosity of the cooling rocky core, which cancompletely erode light envelopes while preserving heavy ones, produces adeficit of intermediate sized planets. We evolve planetary populations that arederived from observations using a simple analytical prescription, accountingself-consistently for envelope accretion, cooling and mass loss, anddemonstrate that core-powered mass loss naturally reproduces the observedradius distribution, regardless of the high-energy incident flux. Observationsof planets around different stellar types may distinguish betweenphotoevaporation, which is powered by the high-energy tail of the stellarradiation, and core-powered mass loss, which depends on the bolometric fluxthrough the planet's equilibrium temperature that sets both its cooling andmass-loss rates.

Core-powered mass loss and the radius distribution of small exoplanets