Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-8-2021

Publication Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

503

Issue

2

First page number:

2825

Last page number:

2832

Abstract

Water (H2O), in all forms, is an important constituent in planetary bodies, controlling habitability and influencing geological activity. Under conditions found in the interior of many planets, as the pressure increases, the H-bonds in water gradually weaken and are replaced by ionic bonds. Recent experimental measurements of the water equation of state (EOS) showed both a new phase of H-bonded water ice, ice-VIIt, and a relatively low transition pressure just above 30 GPa to ionic bonded ice-X, which has a bulk modulus 2.5 times larger. The higher bulk modulus of ice-X produces larger planets for a given mass, thereby either reducing the atmospheric contribution to the volume of many exoplanets or limiting their water content. We investigate the impact of the new EOS measurements on the planetary mass–radius relation and interior structure for water-rich planets. We find that the change in the planet mass–radius relation caused by the systematic differences between previous and new experimental EOS measurements is comparable to the observational uncertainties in some planet sizes – an issue that will become more important as observations continue to improve.

Keywords

Methods: Numerical; Planets and satellites: Interiors; Composition

Disciplines

Cosmochemistry | The Sun and the Solar System

File Format

pdf

File Size

1274 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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