Generating eccentricity from envelope stripping in the Radius Valley

Abstract

We demonstrate that the stripping of planetary envelopes can result in the excitation of planetary orbital eccentricity if the stripped gas remains in the system long enough to interact gravitationally and absorb angular momentum from the planetary orbit. We estimate that envelope mass fractions of a few percent can excite eccentricities of order 0.1 for single planets. This process can potentially explain the elevated eccentricities observed for planets whose radii lie in, or near, the radius valley. In multiple planet systems, the stripped gas can mediate angular momentum exchange between neighbouring planets, causing the separation to expand. Using data from the Kepler satellite, we find that planet pairs, whose members straddle the radius valley, do appear to be systematically wider than those in which both members are sub-Neptunes. These results support the idea that planets in, or just below, the radius valley are the stripped cores of planets that have lost mass, because the elevated eccentricities represent evidence that the gas remained in the system long enough to absorb additional angular momentum from the planet.