Resolving the Mysteries of Highly Irradiated Planets: Observations and Simulations
Name
mehrle-nmehrle-phd-physics-2023-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
11.19 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
35e782e98ad8553b8041a6c9142182d0
Author(s)
Mehrle, Nicholas
Advisor(s)
Seager, Sara
Date Issued
June 2023
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Modern exoplanet science has an observational bias towards short-period planets. Among other things, these planets tend to be highly irradiated, either thermally resulting in high equilibrium temperatures and/or through high energy FUV/Xray radiation. The resulting planets exhibit a diverse array of physical characteristics unlike those seen on Earth. I present a collection of works broadly encompassed by the theme of understanding highly irradiated planets and a set of new techniques I develop to further analysis of these strange worlds. First I discuss observations of Upsilon Andromedae b, a non-transiting planet I have observed the atmosphere of for the first time, and Venus, Earth’s twin sister that turned out so different. Each of these observations is enabled by a new method I introduce for that class of analyses. I then present my work on radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of atmospheres subject to intense high energy radiation, for which I have developed a new simulation code with a unique purpose.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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