Konstantinos Kilmetis

Me, gleeful

In Poros, Saronic Gulf, Greece

`Hello There`

Welcome to my website! I’m Konstantinos. I’ll try and catalogue some neat things about work and projects of mine.

I hold a B.Sc in Physics from the University of Athens and a M.Sc in Astronomy & Data Science from Leiden University. I was brought up in Athens and am currently based in Leiden. The vastness of space overwhelms me, so I try to stick with -astronomically- small objects. I’ve worked with:

Tidal Disruption Events, where an unlucky star is eaten by massive black hole.
Exoplanetary Magnetic Fields, where internal motions in planets sustain a magnetic field.
Neutron Stars, whose interiors are a great mystery.

My hobbies include but are not limited to: cooking for friends and family, board games & TTRPGs, sports and Excel spreadsheets.

Selected Publications

MNRAS
Magnetic fields of hot Jupiters and hot Neptunes: Evolution and Detection Prospects

K. Kilmetis, A. A. Vidotto, A. Allan , and 1 more author

2024

Abs Bib

Numerical simulations have shown that the strength of planetary magnetic fields depends on the convective energy flux emerging from planetary interiors. Here we model the interior structure of gas giant planets using MESA, to determine the convective energy flux that can drive the generation of magnetic field. This flux is then incorporated in the Christensen et al. dynamo formalism to estimate the maximum dipolar magnetic field of our simulated planets. First, we explore how the surface field of intensely irradiated hot Jupiters ( 300 Earth Masses) and hot Neptunes ( 20 Earth Masses) evolve as they age. Assuming an orbital separation of 0.1 au, for the hot Jupiters, we find that the maximum surface magnetic field evolves from 240 G at 500 Myr to 120 G at 5 Gyr. For hot Neptunes, the magnetic field evolves from 11 G at young ages and dies out at ≳2 Gyr. Furthermore, we also investigate the effects of atmospheric mass fraction, atmospheric evaporation, orbital separations αand additional planetary masses on the derived maximum surface field. We found that it increases with αfor very close-in planets and plateaus out after that. Higher atmospheric mass fractions lead in general to stronger surface fields, because they allow for more extensive dynamo regions and stronger convection. Finally, we show that potential auroral emission from hot Jupiters and very young hot Neptunes could be detectable with ground-based radio observatories.
@article{exomag24, title = {Magnetic fields of hot Jupiters and hot Neptunes: Evolution and Detection Prospects}, author = {Kilmetis, K. and Vidotto, A. A. and Allan, A. and Kubyshkina, D.}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, }