Research Overview
My research aims to understand the impact that elemental abundances have on planet formation and evolution.
Specifically, I consider how planet occurrence rates for a given population is affected by varying amounts of
material. Additionally, I use information about these population studies to inform my interior models to understand
how they may impact the evolution of a planet by varying volatiles. The questions my research aims to answer are:
1. How much and what type of material is required for planet formation?
2. Do different planet types prefer different materials based on their location?
3. How much are rocky planets impacted by varying their formation materials or volatiles?
Impact of Magma on Lava Worlds
With this project, our aim was to understand how much the presence of magma can affect the observable properties of a planet. Magma has a interesting property. It is less dense than solid rock at surface pressures, but it is also highly compressible at high pressure that one would find in a super-Earth's interior. Therefore, a lava world could either be more or less dense than an equivalent mass solid planet. As we addressed this question, we found a few intriguing results. The volatiles present in magma do not cause signifant changes to the the radius of a lava world. We also found three magma structures arise that are shown in the figures below. Lastly, the majority of likely lava worlds that we can detect with our current instruments are most likely as dense or denser than an equivalent mass solid planet.
Hot Jupiter Planet Occurrence Rate around Halo Stars
I investigated hot Jupiter planet occurrence in the metal-poor regime (-2 < [Fe/H] < -0.6). By considering the most metal-poor stars, we can glimpse into the past to understand planet formation and what role metallicity plays in planet formation. It is an important first step in determining how planet formation occurs on a larger scale. This work serves as an archor point for future work where I will constrain the functional form of Jovian planet occurrence vs metallicity.
