title: Hot super-Earths stripped by their host stars.
abstract: Simulations predict that hot super-Earth sized exoplanets can have their envelopes stripped by photoevaporation, which would present itself as a lack of these exoplanets. However, this absence in the exoplanet population has escaped a firm detection. Here we demonstrate, using asteroseismology on a sample of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates observed during the Kepler mission that, while there is an abundance of super-Earth sized exoplanets with low incident fluxes, none are found with high incident fluxes. We do not find any exoplanets with radii between 2.2 and 3.8 Earth radii with incident flux above 650 times the incident flux on Earth. This gap in the population of exoplanets is explained by evaporation of volatile elements and thus supports the predictions. The confirmation of a hot-super-Earth desert caused by evaporation will add an important constraint on simulations of planetary systems, since they must be able to reproduce the dearth of close-in super-Earths.
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Landessternwarte, Königstuhl 12, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
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authors.initials: MS
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kjeldsen
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.lastname: Albrecht
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
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authors.affiliation: Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
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authors.lastname: Huber
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Justesen
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 2, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Karoff
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.initials: V
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Van Eylen
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA.|Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, 596 1st Street West, Sonoma, California 95476, USA.
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authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7139-2724
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Barclay
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: T R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Bedding
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
authors.forename: T L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Campante
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: J
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5137-0966
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Christensen-Dalsgaard
authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
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authors.initials: YP
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authors.affiliation: Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
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authors.initials: RL
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: R
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8725-4502
authors.initials: R
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.
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authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA.
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authors.initials: SD
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80301, USA.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
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authors.affiliation: Stellar Astrophysics Centre (SAC), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Institut für Astrophysik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.
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