The Interiors of Giant Planets: Models and Outstanding Questions

We know that giant planets played a crucial role in the making of our Solar System. The discovery of giant planets orbiting other stars is a formidable opportunity to learn more about these objects, what is their composition, how various processes influence their structure and evolution, and most importantly how they form. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune can be studied in detail, mostly from close spacecraft flybys. We can infer that they are all enriched in heavy elements compared to the Sun, with the relative global enrichments increasing with distance to the Sun. We can also infer that they possess dense cores of varied masses. The intercomparison of presently caracterised extrasolar giant planets show that they are also mainly made of hydrogen and helium, but that they either have significantly different amounts of heavy elements, or have had different orbital evolutions, or both. Hence, many questions remain and are to be answered for significant progresses on the origins of planets.Comment: 43 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. To appear in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, vol 33, (2005

A Time-Dependent Model of HD209458b

We developed a time-dependent radiative model for the atmosphere of HD209458b to investigate its thermal structure and chemical composition. Time-dependent temperature profiles were calculated, using a uniform zonal wind modelled as a solid body rotation. We predict day/night temperature variations of 600K around 0.1 bar, for a 1 km/s wind velocity, in good agreement with the predictions by Showman & Guillot (2002). On the night side, the low temperature allows the sodium to condense. Depletion of sodium in the morning limb may explain the lower than expected abundance found by Charbonneau et al (2002).Comment: 2 pages, LaTeX with 1 EPS figure embedded, using newpasp.sty (supplied). To appear in the proceedings of the XIXth IAP colloquium "Extrasolar Planets: Today and Tomorrow" held in Paris, France, 2003 June 30 -- July 4, ASP Conf. Se

Evolution of "51Peg b-like" Planets

About one-quarter of the extrasolar giant planets discovered so far have orbital distances smaller than 0.1 AU. These ``51Peg b-like'' planets can now be directly characterized, as shown by the planet transiting in front the star HD209458. We review the processes that affect their evolution. We apply our work to the case of HD209458b, whose radius has been recently measured. We argue that its radius can be reproduced only when the deep atmosphere is assumed to be unrealistically hot. When using more realistic atmospheric temperatures, an energy source appears to be missing in order to explain HD209458b's large size. The most likely source of energy available is not in the planet's spin or orbit, but in the intense radiation received from the parent star. We show that the radius of HD209458b can be reproduced if a small fraction (~1%) of the stellar flux is transformed into kinetic energy in the planetary atmosphere and subsequently converted to thermal energy by dynamical processes at pressures of tens of bars.Comment: 11 pages including 9 figures. A&A, in press. Also available at http://www.obs-nice.fr/guillot/pegasi-planets

The multiple planets transiting Kepler-9 I. Inferring stellar properties and planetary compositions

The discovery of multiple transiting planetary systems offers new possibilities for characterising exoplanets and understanding their formation. The Kepler-9 system contains two Saturn-mass planets, Kepler-9b and 9c. Using evolution models of gas giants that reproduce the sizes of known transiting planets and accounting for all sources of uncertainties, we show that Kepler-9b (respectively 9c) contains $45^{+17}_{-12}$\,\mearth\ (resp. $31^{+13}_{-10}$\,\mearth) of hydrogen and helium and $35^{+10}_{-15}$\,\mearth (resp. $24^{+10}_{-12}$\,\mearth) of heavy elements. More accurate constraints are obtained when comparing planets 9b and 9c: the ratio of the total mass fractions of heavy elements are $Z_{\rm b}/Z_{\rm c}=1.02\pm 0.14$, indicating that, although the masses of the planets differ, their global composition is very similar, an unexpected result for formation models. Using evolution models for super-Earths, we find that Kepler-9d must contain less than 0.1% of its mass in hydrogen and helium and predict a mostly rocky structure with a total mass between 4 and 16\,\mearth.Comment: 5 pages + 7 pages of online material ; revised article submitted to A\&A and accepted on March 3

On the Radii of Close-in Giant Planets

The recent discovery that the close-in extrasolar giant planet, HD209458b, transits its star has provided a first-of-its-kind measurement of the planet's radius and mass. In addition, there is a provocative detection of the light reflected off of the giant planet, $\tau$ Boo b. Including the effects of stellar irradiation, we estimate the general behavior of radius/age trajectories for such planets and interpret the large measured radii of HD209458b and $\tau$ Boo b in that context. We find that HD209458b must be a hydrogen-rich gas giant. Furthermore, the large radius of close-in gas giant is not due to the thermal expansion of its atmosphere, but to the high residual entropy that remains throughout its bulk by dint of its early proximity to a luminous primary. The large stellar flux does not inflate the planet, but retards its otherwise inexorable contraction from a more extended configuration at birth. This implies either that such a planet was formed near its current orbital distance or that it migrated in from larger distances ($\geq$0.5 A.U.), no later than a few times $10^7$ years of birth.Comment: aasms4 LaTeX, 1 figure, accepted to Ap.J. Letter

First Principles Calculations of Shock Compressed Fluid Helium

The properties of hot dense helium at megabar pressures were studied with two first-principles computer simulation techniques, path integral Monte Carlo and density functional molecular dynamics. The simulations predicted that the compressibility of helium is substantially increased by electronic excitations that are present in the hot fluid at thermodynamic equilibrium. A maximum compression ratio of 5.24(4)-fold the initial density was predicted for 360 GPa and 150000 K. This result distinguishes helium from deuterium, for which simulations predicted a maximum compression ratio of 4.3(1). Hugoniot curves for statically precompressed samples are also discussed.Comment: Accepted to publication in Physical Review Letter

Comparative Evolution of Jupiter and Saturn

We present evolutionary sequences for Jupiter and Saturn, based on new nongray model atmospheres, which take into account the evolution of the solar luminosity and partitioning of dense components to deeper layers. The results are used to set limits on the extent to which possible interior phase separation of hydrogen and helium may have progressed in the two planets. When combined with static models constrained by the gravity field, our evolutionary calculations constrain the helium mass fraction in Jupiter to be between 0.20 and 0.27, relative to total hydrogen and helium. This is in agreement with the Galileo determination. The helium mass fraction in Saturn's atmosphere lies between 0.11 and 0.25, higher than the Voyager determination. Based on the discrepancy between the Galileo and Voyager results for Jupiter, and our models, we predict that Cassini measurements will yield a higher atmospheric helium mass fraction for Saturn relative to the Voyager value.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures. submitted to ``Planetary and Space Science.'

An analysis of the CoRoT-2 system: A young spotted star and its inflated giant planet

Context: CoRoT-2b is one of the most anomalously large exoplanet known. Given its large mass, its large radius cannot be explained by standard evolution models. Interestingly, the planet's parent star is an active, rapidly rotating solar-like star with a large fraction (7 to 20%) of spots. Aims: We want to provide constraints on the properties of the star-planet system and understand whether the planet's inferred large size may be due to a systematic error on the inferred parameters, and if not, how it may be explained. Methods: We combine stellar and planetary evolution codes based on all available spectroscopic and photometric data to obtain self-consistent constraints on the system parameters. Results: We find no systematic error in the stellar modeling (including spots and stellar activity) that would yield the required ~10% reduction in size for the star and thus the planet. Two classes of solutions are found: the usual main sequence solution for the star yields for the planet a mass of 3.67+/-0.13 Mjup, a radius of 1.55+/-0.03 Rjup for an age that is at least 130Ma, and should be less than 500Ma given the star's fast rotation and significant activity. We identify another class of solutions on the pre-main sequence, in which case the planet's mass is 3.45\pm 0.27 Mjup, its radius is 1.50+/-0.06 Rjup for an age between 30 and 40 Ma. These extremely young solutions provide the simplest explanation for the planet's size which can then be matched by a simple contraction from an initially hot, expanded state, provided the atmospheric opacities are increased by a factor ~3 compared to usual assumptions for solar compositions atmospheres. Other solutions imply in any case that the present inflated radius of CoRoT-2b is transient and the result of an event that occurred less than 20 Ma ago: a giant impact with another Jupiter-mass planet, or interactions with another object in the system which caused a significant rise of the eccentricity followed by the rapid circularization of its orbit. Conclusions: Additional observations of CoRoT-2 that could help understanding this system include searches for infrared excess and the presence of a debris disk and searches for additional companions. The determination of a complete infrared lightcurve including both the primary and secondary transits would also be extremely valuable to constrain the planet's atmospheric properties and to determine the planet-to-star radius ratio in a manner less vulnerable to systematic errors due to stellar activity.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures, accepted for A&

A Time-Dependent Radiative Model of HD209458b

We present a time-dependent radiative model of the atmosphere of HD209458b and investigate its thermal structure and chemical composition. In a first step, the stellar heating profile and radiative timescales were calculated under planet-averaged insolation conditions. We find that 99.99% of the incoming stellar flux has been absorbed before reaching the 7 bar level. Stellar photons cannot therefore penetrate deeply enough to explain the large radius of the planet. We derive a radiative time constant which increases with depth and reaches about 8 hr at 0.1 bar and 2.3 days at 1 bar. Time-dependent temperature profiles were also calculated, in the limit of a zonal wind that is independent on height (i.e. solid-body rotation) and constant absorption coefficients. We predict day-night variations of the effective temperature of \~600 K, for an equatorial rotation rate of 1 km/s, in good agreement with the predictions by Showman &Guillot (2002). This rotation rate yields day-to-night temperature variations in excess of 600 K above the 0.1-bar level. These variations rapidly decrease with depth below the 1-bar level and become negligible below the ~5--bar level for rotation rates of at least 0.5 km/s. At high altitudes (mbar pressures or less), the night temperatures are low enough to allow sodium to condense into Na2S. Synthetic transit spectra of the visible Na doublet show a much weaker sodium absorption on the morning limb than on the evening limb. The calculated dimming of the sodium feature during planetary transites agrees with the value reported by Charbonneau et al. (2002).Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, replaced with the revised versio