Could we identify hot Ocean-Planets with CoRoT, Kepler and Doppler velocimetry?
Résumé
Planets less massive than about 10 MEarth are expected to have no massive H-He atmosphere and a cometary composition (50% rocks, 50% water, by mass) provided they formed beyond the snowline of protoplanetary disks. Due to inward migration, such planets could be found at any distance between their formation site and the star. If migration stops within the habitable zone, this will produce a new kind of planets, called Ocean-Planets. Ocean-planets typically consist in a silicate core, surrounded by a thick ice mantle, itself covered by a 100 km deep ocean. The existence of ocean-planets raises important astrobiological questions: Can life originate on such body, in the absence of continent and ocean-silicate interfaces? What would be the nature of the atmosphere and the geochemical cycles ? In this work, we address the fate of Hot Ocean-Planets produced when migration ends at a closer distance. In this case the liquid/gas interface can disappear, and the hot H2O envelope is made of a supercritical fluid. Although we do not expect these bodies to harbor life, their detection and identification as water-rich planets would give us insight as to the abundance of hot and, by extrapolation, cool Ocean-Planets.