Image Details
Caption: Figure 6.
Fraction of isolated hot Neptunes (10 < Mp/M⊕ < 30; blue) and hot Jupiters (Mp > 100 M⊕; red) with eccentricities exceeding a threshold ecrit as a function of inferred circularization radius, af = a(1 − e2). The two panels correspond to ecrit = 0.1 and 0.2. Points show fixed-width 0.02 au bins, and labels give the number of eccentric planets relative to the total number of systems in each bin. Systems are required to have reported eccentricity uncertainties σe < 0.1, and hosts with known planetary companions inside 0.5 au are excluded. Hot Jupiters show a pronounced decline in eccentric fraction toward smaller af, while hot Neptunes show little evidence for a comparable trend. Although the current hot-Neptune sample remains small, this behavior is qualitatively consistent with the weak dependence of circularization time on final orbital distance predicted by thermally regulated tidal evolution.
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.