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arXiv 0912.3288astro-ph.EP
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系外行星内部成分简并度的定量框架

A Framework for Quantifying the Degeneracies of Exoplanet Interior Compositions

L. A. Rogers, S. Seager

摘要:

预计在未来几年内将发现几个过境的超级地球。虽然存在对凌日行星内部结构进行建模的工具,但关于其组成的推断充满了模糊性。我们提出了一个框架来量化我们可以从半径和质量测量中有力地推断出超级地球和海王星大小的系外行星内部。我们引入四元图来说明行星的内部组成可能有四层(铁核心,硅酸盐地幔,水层,和H/He信封)的范围。我们将我们的模型应用于CoRoT-7 b,GJ 436 b和HAT-P-11b。对H/He包层行星的解释受到内部温度模型不确定性的限制,而对于CoRoT-7 b,观测不确定性占主导地位。我们进一步发现,我们的行星内部模型锐化了对CoRoT-7 b质量和半径的观测约束,假设行星不包含大量的水或气体。我们表明,可以放置在一个超级地球的组成的限制的强度取决于行星的密度;对于类似的观测不确定性,高密度的超级水星允许最严格的组成约束。最后,我们描述了如何从贝叶斯统计技术可以被用来考虑在一个正式的方式相结合的贡献,理论和观测的不确定性,在一个行星的内部组成的模糊性。总的来说,只有质量和半径的测量不能推断出系外行星的确切内部组成,因为这个问题是高度不受约束的。然而,可以找到合理成分的详细定量范围。

英文摘要:

Several transiting super-Earths are expected to be discovered in the coming few years. While tools to model the interior structure of transiting planets exist, inferences about the composition are fraught with ambiguities. We present a framework to quantify how much we can robustly infer about super-Earth and Neptune-size exoplanet interiors from radius and mass measurements. We introduce quaternary diagrams to illustrate the range of possible interior compositions for planets with four layers (iron core, silicate mantles, water layers, and H/He envelopes). We apply our model to CoRoT-7b, GJ 436b, and HAT-P-11b. Interpretation of planets with H/He envelopes is limited by the model uncertainty in the interior temperature, while for CoRoT-7b observational uncertainties dominate. We further find that our planet interior model sharpens the observational constraints on CoRoT-7b's mass and radius, assuming the planet does not contain significant amounts of water or gas. We show that the strength of the limits that can be placed on a super-Earth's composition depends on the planet's density; for similar observational uncertainties, high-density super-Mercuries allow the tightest composition constraints. Finally, we describe how techniques from Bayesian statistics can be used to take into account in a formal way the combined contributions of both theoretical and observational uncertainties to ambiguities in a planet's interior composition. On the whole, with only a mass and radius measurement an exact interior composition cannot be inferred for an exoplanet because the problem is highly underconstrained. Detailed quantitative ranges of plausible compositions, however, can be found.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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