On the connection between planet evaporation and the activity - planet gravity correlation

Séminaire IPAG de Luca Fossati (Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences), jeudi 24 septembre 2015 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Ultraviolet HST observations of close-in transiting planets showed that planet atmospheric evaporation is an important phenomenon playing a role in planet evolution, formation, habitability, and population. I will show our results obtained from the analysis of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the hot-Jupiters WASP-12b and WASP-13b. I will then show how planet evaporation may be at the origin of the correlation between the chromospheric activity of stars hosting hot-Jupiters and the planets’ surface gravity.