| Abstract |
At present, more than 1000 exoplanets (called Super-Earth and Sub-Earth) with planetary radii smaller than 2 Earth radii have been discovered. About half of them are located in the vicinity of the main star (a < 0.1 AU) with radiative equilibrium temperatures above the melting temperature of rocks. These rocky planets are thought to have atmospheres composed of magmatic vapors (Schafer & Fegley 2009, Schafer et al. 2012). On the other hand, atmospheric observations of small exoplanets such as rocky planets have become possible in recent years. These atmospheric observations can lead to the understanding of the bulk composition and formation processes of Super-Earths and Sub-Earths in the vicinity of the main star. We have developed an original atmospheric model to estimate the vertical structure of mineral atmospheres (Ito et al. 2015), which has never been done before. Ito et al. (2015) also showed that the mineral atmosphere is sufficiently detectable with the observation accuracy of the next-generation space telescope JWST (scheduled for 2020). In this article, we review their study and discuss recent related theoretical and observational studies. |
