Hydrodynamic simulations of captured protoatmospheres around Earth-like planets

Context. Young terrestrial planets, when they are still embedded in a circumstellar disk, accumulate an atmosphere of nebula gas. The evolution and eventual evaporation of the protoplanetary disk affect the structure and dynamics of the planetary atmosphere. These processes, combined with other mass loss mechanisms, such as thermal escape driven by extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray radiation from the young host star, determine how much of the primary atmosphere, if anything at all, survives into later stages of planetary evolution.