Correlations between the Carbon-to-Oxygen Ratio and the Orbital and Physical Properties of Exoplanets
Abstract
Studies suggest that protoplanetary disks around stars with high carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratios can produce terrestrial planets with carbon-dominated compositions instead of silicon-dominated ones. While previous work studied the evolution of these disks and the planets that form within them, none analyze in detail how the differences in the surface density profiles of these disks could affect the architectures and iron and siderophile contents of exoplanetary systems. Here, we present a new study that uses the N-body integrator REBOUND and data from a sequential dust condensation model to simulate the formation of planets in systems with varying C/O ratios. We find that bulk density could be used to distinguish between silicon-rich and carbon-rich planets, though it may not be a reliable metric on its own.
Related
- Space Journey Beyond Earth: Exploring the properties of exoplanets and multi-planetary systems
- Fitting Resonant Exoplanets Orbits. I. Properties and Applications of Fixed-Point Orbits
- Rosetta Earth Flyby Anomaly Revisited: Assessing Physical Contributions through Orbital Dynamics Analysis
- The physical and chemical structure of TMC-1: The spatial distribution and excitation conditions of carbon, oxygen, and sulfur bearing species -- Depletion of CO and CS
- The physical and chemical structure of TMC-1. The spatial distribution and excitation conditions of carbon, oxygen, and sulfur bearing species: Depletion of CO and CS
BibTeX
@misc{ferich2026correlations,
title = {{Correlations between the Carbon-to-Oxygen Ratio and the Orbital and Physical Properties of Exoplanets}},
author = {Noah Ferich and Robert Royer III and Cody Shakespeare and Jason H. Steffen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.00813},
eprint = {2610.00813},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00813},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Correlations between the Carbon-to-Oxygen Ratio and the Orbital and Physical Properties of Exoplanets
AU - Noah Ferich
AU - Robert Royer III
AU - Cody Shakespeare
AU - Jason H. Steffen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.00813
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00813
AB - Studies suggest that protoplanetary disks around stars with high carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratios can produce terrestrial planets with carbon-dominated compositions instead of silicon-dominated ones. While previous work studied the evolution of these disks and the planets that form within them, none analyze in detail how the differences in the surface density profiles of these disks could affect the architectures and iron and siderophile contents of exoplanetary systems. Here, we present a new study that uses the N-body integrator REBOUND and data from a sequential dust condensation model to simulate the formation of planets in systems with varying C/O ratios. We find that bulk density could be used to distinguish between silicon-rich and carbon-rich planets, though it may not be a reliable metric on its own.
ER -