Photoevaporation and high-eccentricity migration created the sub-Jovian desert
Abstract
The mass-period or radius-period distribution of close-in exoplanets shows a paucity of intermediate mass/size (sub-Jovian) planets with periods ≲3 d. We show that this sub-Jovian desert can be explained by the photoevaporation of highly irradiated sub-Neptunes and the tidal disruption barrier for gas giants undergoing high-eccentricity migration. The distinctive triangular shape of the sub-Jovain desert results from the fact that photoevaporation is more effective closer to the host star, and that in order for a gas giant to tidally circularize closer to the star without tidal disruption it needs to be more massive. Our work indicates that super-Earths/mini-Neptunes and hot-Jupiters had distinctly separate formation channels and arrived at their present locations at different times.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- October 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/sty1760
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1807.00012
- Bibcode:
- 2018MNRAS.479.5012O
- Keywords:
-
- planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability;
- planets and satellites: formation;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in MNRAS