Atmospheric and interior evolution of planetary magma oceans

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope now enables exoplanet astronomy access to spectrally probe the composition of short-period rocky exoplanets. These exoplanets are under intense irradiation. Their climates possibly range from atmosphere-stripped molten lava worlds to deep atmospheric layers in close interaction with an underlying mixed interior phase. These novel climatic and geophysical regimes present an outstanding theoretical and experimental challenge, which currently limits the robust physical interpretation of observational data from short-period exoplanets.

In this Lorentz Center workshop, we will address this situation by setting a protocol for an intercomparison of planetary evolution codes with benchmark tests for the key regimes of magma ocean evolution. This protocol will follow guidelines established within the  CUISINES framework for exoplanet model intercomparison projects. The goal of the workshop will be to define and implement a roadmap for a detailed intercomparison project between multiple leading computational frameworks of magma ocean evolution.