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Incoming links: CoRoT-3b
Brown dwarf Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-11-05
A brown dwarf is a self-gravitating body that does not sustain ordinary core hydrogen burning. Contraction initially heats it, but growing electron degeneracy pressure limits further compression before long-lived hydrogen fusion can establish the thermal balance of a main-sequence star. It subsequently cools and becomes fainter.
Some brown dwarfs temporarily burn deuterium; the deuterium-burning mass is a composition-dependent classification scale rather than a unique formation test. Their radii can be close to Jupiter's across a broad mass range. Consequently, exoplanet transit photometry alone cannot distinguish a giant planet from a brown dwarf. The transit and Doppler spectroscopy measurements of CoRoT-3b illustrate why independent mass information is decisive for characterizing such compact companions.
CoRoT-3b Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
CoRoT-3b is a short-period transiting companion with roughly Jupiter masses but a radius close to Jupiter's. Its discovery combined a sequence of exoplanet transits with ground-based Doppler spectroscopy and additional checks. This measured both a large mass and a compact radius, placing it above the ordinary giant-planet population in mean mass density.[ref]
Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission VI by Magali Deleuil and others. Abstract: 34 transits, combined photometric and spectroscopic analysis, mass and radius
The object illustrates why a measured radius alone does not distinguish a giant planet from a brown dwarf: electron degeneracy pressure can give very different masses similar radii. Its mass also does not uniquely reveal its formation mechanism. The discovery paper explicitly left the formation-based interpretation open between a low-mass brown dwarf and an unusually massive planetary companion.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 315 4 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A mass-radius curve of solar-composition substellar objects must specify age, irradiation and composition. For a mature, weakly irradiated hydrogen–helium sequence, the qualitative mass-radius relation has three main trends:
- At low giant-planet masses, weak compression allows a rough scaling at nearly fixed mean mass density. Radius rises toward a broad maximum around one to a few Jupiter masses.
- Through massive gas giants and brown dwarfs, radii remain near Jupiter's and eventually decline as compression and electron degeneracy pressure become important. A nonrelativistic degenerate stellar polytrope gives the approximate polytropic mass-radius relation ; finite thermal pressure and real equations of state flatten and modify this idealized scaling.
- Above the hydrogen-burning minimum mass, sustained hydrogen burning supplies the energy that supports a rising low-mass main-sequence branch. For near-solar composition, the threshold is around Jupiter masses (about solar masses), with composition-dependent variation. Red dwarfs then have radii increasing with mass, approximately linearly over part of the low-mass sequence.
The conventional deuterium-burning mass near Jupiter masses marks a commonly used giant-planet/brown dwarf classification scale, not a sharp discontinuity in radius or a universal formation boundary. Young brown dwarfs are larger and cool by contraction; irradiation, a heavy-element core and hot-Jupiter radius inflation shift planets away from a single solar-composition curve.
The drawing is a qualitative mature sequence, not an interpolation of a specified evolutionary model grid. Three relevant observations, using representative historical measurements, are:
- Inflated radii: HD 209458 b has a radius around at a mass around , illustrating hot-Jupiter radius inflation relative to a simple mature unirradiated sequence. Early transit photometry measured its unusually large radius.
- Compact metal-enriched planets: HD 149026 b was measured near and . Its small radius for its mass and irradiation implies substantial heavy-element enrichment in interior models, showing the importance of composition in the planetary mass-radius relation; see the discovery analysis.
- Jupiter-like sizes at substellar masses: CoRoT-3b was measured near but only , supporting the broad near-constant-radius region extending into brown dwarf masses. Its measured mass and radius also illustrate why mass alone does not establish a formation history.
Magali Deleuil and collaborators report the combined transit and radial-velocity characterization of CoRoT-3b.