Exoplanet exploration in the context of the PLATO mission: From detection to population studies

Understanding how planetary systems form and evolve is one of the main goals of exoplanet research. The discovery of 51 Peg b in 1995, a Jupiter-mass planet with an orbit seven times shorter than Mercury’s, changed our long-standing paradigm based on the Solar System. Formation theories show that gi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Castro González, Amadeo
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Fecha de publicación:2026
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/132495
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132495
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:523.4(043.2)
Astronomía (Física)
21 Astronomía y Astrofísica
Descripción
Sumario:Understanding how planetary systems form and evolve is one of the main goals of exoplanet research. The discovery of 51 Peg b in 1995, a Jupiter-mass planet with an orbit seven times shorter than Mercury’s, changed our long-standing paradigm based on the Solar System. Formation theories show that giant planets such as 51 Peg b can only form in the outer regions of planetary systems. However, many doubts remain about how a fraction of these planets migrated towards their present-day close-in orbits. Small planets, in contrast, could have been formed closer to their stars, but still pose an important challenge: the existence of large degeneracies in their possible internal structures. Therefore, the path towards a deep understanding of how planets form and evolve unequivocally passes through the study of the migration mechanisms of giant planets and the internal structures of small planets, two relevant topics for which we still lack a definitive picture...