A Framework for Thermal Atmospheric Escape from Extrasolar Planets

太阳系外行星热大气逃逸的框架

• 批准号: 1411536
• 负责人: Ruth Murray-Clay
• 金额: $ 25.03万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1411536&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Framework; Thermal; Atmospheric; Escape; Extrasolar

This award funds work to study the physical and chemical processes involved in extrasolar planets, which are planets that orbit other stars. The PI will focus on planets that are so close to their host star that much of their atmospheres are being blasted away by the star?s heat. The PI will also conduct public outreach, write briefs on exoplanet research for high school students, and train and mentor a graduate student in research. The bulk of this work focuses on thermal atmospheric escape that is driven by external irradiation. The PI and her team will generate a flexible framework for modeling thermal atmospheric escape over a range of planetary masses, radii, and environments. The researchers will then use this framework to generate easy-to-use expressions for escape from hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. These expressions will allow other researchers to translate the planetary and stellar properties of their favorite systems into (1) the physical regime in which atmospheric mass loss occurs, and (2) the mass-loss rate in that regime. This work will be accomplished through the expansion and application of an algorithm, created by the PI, to estimate thermalescape rates.

该奖项资助研究系外行星的物理和化学过程，系外行星是围绕其他恒星运行的行星。PI将专注于那些离主星很近的行星，它们的大部分大气层都被主星吹走了。年代热量。PI还将进行公众宣传，为高中生撰写系外行星研究简报，并培训和指导一名研究生进行研究。这项工作的大部分集中在由外部辐射驱动的热大气逃逸。PI和她的团队将生成一个灵活的框架，用于模拟行星质量、半径和环境范围内的热大气逃逸。然后，研究人员将使用这个框架来生成易于使用的从氢主导的大气中逸出的表达式。这些表达式将使其他研究人员能够将他们所喜爱的系统的行星和恒星特性转化为：(1)大气质量损失发生的物理状态，以及(2)该状态下的质量损失率。这项工作将通过扩展和应用由PI创建的算法来完成，以估计热逸率。