Testing atmospheric escape via photoevaporation using exoplanets

This study aims to test the compatibility of the escape in the atmospheres of exoplanets, which are planets outside the Solar System, with the photoevaporation hypothesis. The existence of systems that are not compatible with this hypothesis indicates the existence of new atmospheric loss models and may also reveal the existence of interesting systems. In the study, three different radius and density scenarios and sub-target lists belonging to these scenarios were tested by using parameters such as radius, mass, distance to the star, and XUV radiation of exoplanet systems in the NASA Exoplanet Archive database, considering different situations. The analysis was associated with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method and processed with Python. The basic findings obtained are that the vast majority of the exoplanet systems in the NEA database are compatible with the photoevaporation hypothesis. On the other hand, there are also interesting systems that can be classified as atmospheric escape processes that are predicted to occur with different mechanisms. In conclusion, it is clear that the photoevaporation hypothesis is sufficient in the process of solving the demographic structure and atmospheric escape of exoplanetary systems, but it offers important contributions to literature regarding the need to understand the different mechanisms that occur in interesting systems and to be able to solve the atmospheric escape that occurs on the surfaces of these planets.