Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2007-04-22
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
research presentation, 85 figures
Scientific paper
We have had several talks recently reviewing 11 years of exoplanet discoveries through radial velocity variations, or from transits, or from microlensing. More than 200 exoplanets have been found, including some around pulsars that we do not discuss here. My physical definition for a planet is a roughly spherical, self-gravitating body more massive than 10**26 g formed from the leftover material in a protostellar disk after the protostar forms. Radiation from the protostar pushes the inner wall of the disk outward. The material agglomerates and forms planets in radial sequence. The outer planets are formed slowly by classical dynamical mechanisms acting in the snow zone. Planets have dense cores because of agglomeration. Not one of the exoplanets discovered thus far is a planet. They are cryptoplanets formed from matter ejected by protostars. When protostars have excessive infall at high latitudes, they partially balance angular momentum through outflow at the equator as they spin up. The ejected matter is trapped in the magnetic torus formed between the star and the disk, like a tokamak. The tokamak eventully reconnects and magnetic compression forms self-gravitating remnants trapped and compressed by a closed spherical magnetic field, spheromaks. Cooled spheromaks are cryptoplanets. They orbit near the star. They can merge with each other or fall into the star or be ejected. They can grow by accreting gas. They have a low density core and abundances characteristic of the protostar. Their masses, radii, densities, and orbits are random, and are inconsistent with the parameters for planets. They tend to have lower density than planets.
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