Analysis reveals rotation increases radii and decreases mass for two-layer planets, highlighting observational impacts.
We analyze the effects of rotation on mass-radius relationships for single-layer and two-layer planets with a core and an envelope made of pure materials that includes iron, perovskite, and water in solid phase. The numerical surveys we adopted employ the DROP code updated with a modified polytropic equation of state (EoS). We investigated the flattening parameters, f, up to $0.2$. In the mass range of $0.1 łesssim M łesssim 10 we find that the rotation systematically shifts the curves of composition towards larger radii and/or smaller masses. Relative to the spherical case, the equatorial radius, ̊eq, is increased by about $0.36 f$ for single-layer planets and by $0.30 f$ to $0.55 f$ for two-layer planets (depending on the core size fraction, q, and the planet mass, M). Rotation is an additional source of confusion in deriving planetary structures, as the radius alterations are of the same order as i) current observational uncertainties for super-Earths and ii) EoS variations. We established a multivariate fit of the form ̊eq(M,f,q), which enables a fast characterisation of the core size and rotational state of rocky planets and ocean worlds. We discuss how the observational data must be shifted in the diagrams to self-consistently account for an eventual planet spin, depending on the geometry of the transit (i.e. circular or oblate). A simple application to the recently characterised super-Earth candidate łhs is discussed in this work.
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Huré et al. (2025) studied this question.
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