Super-Earth masses and stellar abundances from NIRPS reveal tentative evidence for water-rich formation around M dwarfs

Tracing the compositional link between terrestrial super-Earths and their host stars provides clues about their dominant formation pathway. By constraining the stellar abundances of refractory elements, we can predict the core mass fractions (CMFs) of their super-Earths. The level of agreement between this prediction and the planetary CMF derived from their masses and radii can reveal past formation processes, such as mantle stripping and water-rich formation plus sequestration in the planet core. We present the first results from the Near Infrared Planet Searcher (NIRPS) GTO CMF subprogram: an intensive radial velocity campaign to refine masses and compute host stellar abundances of three hot super-Earths around M dwarfs (GJ,1132,b, GJ,1252,b, and LTT,3780,b). We calculated masses of 1.69 ± 0.15 M_⊕, 1.54 ± 0.18 M_⊕, and 2.34 ± 0.10 M_⊕ respectively. We measured the CMFs of these and six further hot super-Earths with masses already available in the literature to a precision of 10--15%. We compared them to CMF predictions made from measuring the Fe, Mg, and Si abundances of their host stars measured from the NIRPS spectra. The CMFs of these planets are smaller than expected from their host stellar abundances to a statistically significant degree. This discrepancy is suggestive of significant reservoirs of water, and while these planets are too hot to harbor surface water, they likely have interior water mass fractions of ∼ 1%.

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Publication Details

Journal
Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Published
2026-04-20
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202558011/pdf
Primary Topic
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
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article
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article

Super-Earth masses and stellar abundances from NIRPS reveal tentative evidence for water-rich formation around M dwarfs

Georgia Mraz, N. Nari, Caroline Piaulet, L. Mignon et al.
Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
article

Super-Earth masses and stellar abundances from NIRPS reveal tentative evidence for water-rich formation around M dwarfs

Georgia Mraz, N. Nari, Caroline Piaulet, L. Mignon, Léna Parc, Komal Bali, Dhvani Doshi, Vigneshwaran Krishnamurthy, Antoine Darveau-Bernier, Marion Cointepas, Frédérique Baron, Jennifer Glover, Dany Mounzer, Valentina Vaulato, Leslie Moranta, Mykhaylo Plotnykov, Stefan Pelletier, Yann Carteret, J.-B. Delisle, Farbod Jahandar, Riley Rosener, Pierrot Lamontagne, Luc Bazinet, Laurie Dauplaise, Vincent Bruniquel, Avidaan Srivastava, Lina Messamah, Pedro Branco, Izan de Castro Leão, Andres Carmona, Telmo Monteiro, Marta Bryan, Olivia Pereira, Joshua Blackman, Julia Seidel, Damien Ségransan, Roseane de Lima Gomes, Dasaev O. Fontinele, Jonathan Gagné, Xavier Dumusque, Flavie Bélanger, Jose Renan De Medeiros, Nuno C. Santos, David Lafrenière, François Bouchy, Henry Leath, Drew Weisserman, Nicolas B. Cowan, Xavier Delfosse, Nicole Gromek, João Faria, Bruno L. Canto Martins, Vincent Bourrier, Gregg Wade, Jon Otegi, Khaled Al Moulla, Eduardo Cristo, David Ehrenreich, René Doyon, Diana Valencia, 'Etienne Artigau, Christoph Mordasini, Rafael Rebolo, Claudio Melo, Joost P. Wardenier, Susana C. C. Barros, João Paulo Bueno da Silva, Charles Cadieux, Ares Osborn, Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, José Heber de Souza Aguiar, Ana Rosária Soares d Da Silva, Louise D. Nielsen, Thierry Forveille, Yolanda G. C. Frensch, Justin Lipper, Jonay I. González Hernández, Stéphane Udry, Márcio A. Teixeira, Frédéric Genest, Pierre Larue, Nolan Grieves, Caroline Dorn, Romain Allart, Atanas K. Stefanov, Francesco Pepe, Xavier Bonfils, Christophe Lovis, H. Jens Hoeijmakers, Yuri S. Messias, Thomas Vandal, Alexandrine L'Heureux, Neil J. Cook, Lison Malo, Elisa Delgado-Mena, Olivia Lim, Ryan Cloutier, Björn Benneke, Jason Rowe, Melissa J. Hobson
article en

Abstract

Tracing the compositional link between terrestrial super-Earths and their host stars provides clues about their dominant formation pathway. By constraining the stellar abundances of refractory elements, we can predict the core mass fractions (CMFs) of their super-Earths. The level of agreement between this prediction and the planetary CMF derived from their masses and radii can reveal past formation processes, such as mantle stripping and water-rich formation plus sequestration in the planet core. We present the first results from the Near Infrared Planet Searcher (NIRPS) GTO CMF subprogram: an intensive radial velocity campaign to refine masses and compute host stellar abundances of three hot super-Earths around M dwarfs (GJ,1132,b, GJ,1252,b, and LTT,3780,b). We calculated masses of 1.69 ± 0.15 M_⊕, 1.54 ± 0.18 M_⊕, and 2.34 ± 0.10 M_⊕ respectively. We measured the CMFs of these and six further hot super-Earths with masses already available in the literature to a precision of 10--15%. We compared them to CMF predictions made from measuring the Fe, Mg, and Si abundances of their host stars measured from the NIRPS spectra. The CMFs of these planets are smaller than expected from their host stellar abundances to a statistically significant degree. This discrepancy is suggestive of significant reservoirs of water, and while these planets are too hot to harbor surface water, they likely have interior water mass fractions of ∼ 1%.

Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
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