Exoplanets versus brown dwarfs: the CoRoT view and the future

Jean Schneider
(Submitted on 4 Apr 2016)

CoRoT has detected by transit several tens of objects whose radii run from 1.67 Earth radius. Their mass run from less than 5.7 Earth mass (CoRoT-24 b, Alonso et al. 2014) to 63 Jupiter mass (CoRoT-15 b, Bouchy et al. 2011). One could be tempted to think that more massive the object is, the larger it is in size and that there is some limit in mass and/or radius beyond which objects are not planets but very low mass stars below the 80 Jupiter mass limit to trigger nuclear fusion (namely “brown dwarfs” ). CoRoT findings contribute to the planet versus brown dwarf debate since there is no clear mass-radius relation.

Comments: To be published in The CoroT Legacy Book. 2016 Scientific Editors : Annie Baglin, Olivier Lamarle Publisher : EDP Sciences ISBN: 978-2-7598-1876-1

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1604.00917 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1604.00917v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jean Schneider
[v1] Mon, 4 Apr 2016 15:39:37 GMT (283kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.00917