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Ouyed et al. (Astrophys. J. 501:367, ) proposed Deuterium (DD) fusion at the core-mantle interface of giant planets as a mechanism to explain their observed heat excess. But rather high interior temperatures ( $\sim10^{5}~\mbox{K}$) and a stratified D layer are needed, making such a scenario unlikely. In this paper, we re-examine DD fusion, with the addition of screening effects pertinent to a deuterated core containing ice and some heavy elements. This alleviates the extreme temperature constraint and removes the requirement of a stratified D layer. As an application, we propose that, if their core temperatures are a few times $10^{4}~\mbox{K}$ and core composition is chemically inhomogeneous, the observed inflated size of some giant exoplanets ('hot Jupiters') may be linked to screened DD fusion occurring deep in the interior. Application of an analytic evolution model suggests that the amount of inflation from this effect can be important if there is sufficient rock-ice in the core, making DD fusion an effective extra internal energy source for radius inflation. The mechanism of screened DD fusion, operating in the above temperature range, is generally consistent with the trend in radius anomaly with planetary equilibrium temperature $T_{\mathrm{eq}}$, and also depends on planetary mass. Although we do not consider the effect of incident stellar flux, we expect that a minimum level of irradiation is necessary to trigger core erosion and subsequent DD fusion inside the planet. Since DD fusion is quite sensitive to the screening potential inferred from laboratory experiments, observations of inflated hot Jupiters may help constrain screening effects in the cores of giant planets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) first and then of the STIS and COS spectrographs on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) demonstrate the impact that observations at UV wavelengths had and are having on modern astronomy. Several discoveries in the exoplanet field have been done at UV wavelengths. Nevertheless, the amount of data collected in this band is still limited both in terms of observed targets and time spent on each of them. For the next decade, the post-HST era, the only large (2-m class) space telescope capable of UV observations will be the World Space Observatory-UltraViolet (WSO-UV). In its characteristics, the WSO-UV mission is similar to that of HST, but all observing time will be dedicated to UV astronomy. In this work, we briefly outline the major prospects of the WSO-UV mission in terms of exoplanet studies. To the limits of the data and tools currently available, here we also compare the quality of key exoplanet data obtained in the far-UV and near-UV with HST (STIS and COS) to that expected to obtain with WSO-UV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) on-board the Cassini spacecraft has currently returned around three years worth of data from Saturn’s largest moon Titan. One of the unique aspects of CIRS is to take high spatial resolution spectra of the limb of Titan, with sub-scale height (20–40 km) resolutions. This is made possible by the small field-of-view (FOV) of the mid-IR detectors. However, many limb spectra have moderate to large sized FOVs, which introduces bias into retrieved profiles of temperature and abundance unless the finite FOV size is taken into account. The bias can be reduced by calculating a FOV-averaged spectrum comprising a weighted sum of a small number of spectra with infinitesimal FOVs across the FOV. Here we introduce a scheme for incorporating FOV averaging into radiative transfer calculations of CIRS spectra and quantify the errors as a function of number of FOV averaging points, FOV size, tangent altitude, and wavenumber. The optimum number of FOV averaging points for a given observation can then be found by matching the calculated FOV averaging error with the measurement error. This allows for accurate analysis of a vast amount of Cassini-CIRS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gas giant planets’ formation processes in a viscously evolved protoplanetary disk are studied in the context of the core accretion model. In this paper, we follow the entire formation process of the core accretion model (the three stages). We find that the gas giant planets’ final masses and formation regions have strong dependence on the molecular cloud core’s properties (angular velocity ω and mass Mcd) and the αmin parameter. We find and build the relationship between gas giant planets’ properties and molecular cloud core’s properties. In contrast to the previous works, we find that the formation process can be finished within the protoplanetary disk’s lifetime (4×106 yr) in our disk model. This is because the mass influx produced by the molecular cloud core can provide enough material to the protoplanetary disk. We also find that the gas giant planets’ final masses increase generally with the viscosity coefficient α. This is because most of the gas giant planet’s mass is captured during the rapid gas accretion phase (the third stage of the core accretion model), and furthermore the accretion of gas in this phase is dominated by the “gap limiting case”. And our numerical results can also be compared with the observed data of exoplanet systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]