Juno and Cassini have transformed our understanding of the interior structures of the Solar System’s gas giants. Their gravity measurements suggest that both Jupiter and Saturn possess dilute, or "fuzzy," cores rather than traditional compact ones. This finding has profound implications for the transport of heat and heavy elements within giant planets, influencing their thermal evolution, luminosities, atmospheric metallicities, and present-day internal structures. In this talk, I present the first evolutionary models of Jupiter and Saturn that self-consistently incorporate fuzzy cores, helium rain, ammonia-cloud physics, and unified microphysics, while reproducing their thermal, compositional, and gravity constraints. Extending this evolutionary framework to exoplanets, I investigate how atmospheric mass loss shapes the observed population of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. Using new hydrodynamic mass-loss models that self-consistently combine photoevaporation and core-powered mass loss, I model the evolution of close-in planets and use the observed radius valley to constrain their birth properties, including initial core masses, atmospheric mass fractions, and compositions. These results provide new insights into the formation and evolution of close-in exoplanets.
Daakia Meeting Link: https://www.daakia.co.in/v1/meeting/NjE2MTYxMTc5NjMx