Dr Philip J Carter

March 2025: IVANS model for chondrule formation – Stewart et al. (2025)
In this paper, published in PSJ, we present the Impact Vapor And Nebular Shocks model for the formation of chondrules and chondrites. We show how high velocity collisions between planetesimals produce vapor plumes that cause shocks in the nebula capable of melting dust, and how the expansion of the plume reverses, producing mixtures matching chondrites.
See chondrules.net for more details or read the full paper.

October 2024: Exploring the catastrophic regime: thermodynamics and disintegration in head-on planetary collisions – Dou et al. (2024b)
In this paper, published in MNRAS, we investigate the thermodynamics of high-energy, head-on giant impacts. We describe a new regime of 'fragmentary disintegration' for high-energy collisions, and explore the origins of this phenomenon.

March 2024: Formation of super-Mercuries via giant impacts – Dou et al. (2024a)
In this paper, published in MNRAS, we modelled mantle-stripping in giant impacts between rocky planets. We derived new scaling relations that predict the mass and core mass resulting from impacts and discuss the collisions needed to form Mercury-like planets with high iron core masses.

August 2023: A super-massive Neptune-sized planet – Naponiello et al. (2023)
In this paper by Naponiello et al., published in Nature, we present the discovery of the ultra-dense Neptune-sized planet TOI-1853b. With a mass of 73 Earth masses and a density of 9.7 grams per cubic centimetre, TOI-1853b presents a challenge for conventional theories planet formation. Our simulations show that the initial planetary body would likely have needed to be water-rich and suffer an extreme giant impact at a speed of greater than 75 km/s in order to produce TOI-1853b as it is observed.
See also coverage from: Space.com, Phys.org.

April 2022: Did Earth eat its leftovers? – Carter & Stewart (2022)
In this paper, published in The Planetary Science Journal, we investigate the provenances of planetesimals 'leftover' in the inner disk in the late stages of accretion simulations.
An executable version of the paper is available on GitHub.

April 2022: Denman et al. (2022) – Atmosphere loss in oblique Super-Earth collisions
In this work by Denman et al. we modelled the loss of atmosphere in oblique collisions between super-Earth sized planets. We show that oblique collisions are less efficient at atmosphere removal than head-on collisions. We found that a single collision cannot remove all the atmosphere without also removing a significant fraction of the mantle.
Read the paper in MNRAS.