Mantle Convection And Nightside Volcanism On Lava World K2-141 b

Ultra-short period lava worlds offer a unique window into the coupled evolution of planetary interior and atmospheres under extreme irradiation.

In this study, we investigate the mantle dynamics, nightside volcanism, and volatile outgassing on lava world K2-141 b (1.54R_⊕, 5.31M_⊕) using two-dimensional convection models with tracer-based volatile tracking. Our simulations explore a range of interior configurations, including models with and without plastic yielding, basal versus mixed heating, core cooling, and melt intrusion.

In models without plastic yielding (i.e. with a strong lithosphere), we find that mantle upwellings form at the substellar and antistellar points, while downwellings form near the day-night terminators at the boundary between the magma ocean and cold, solid nightside. These downwellings facilitate the recycling of crustal material, representing a form of asymmetric, single-lid tectonics.

The resulting magma ocean thickness varies from 200 to 300 km depending on the model parameters, corresponding to about 2-3% of the planet’s radius. Continuous nightside volcanism produces a basaltic crust and gradually depletes the mantle of volatiles. We find that over a billion years, volcanic eruptions can outgas tens of bars of CO₂ and H₂O. We show that even relatively large volcanic eruptions on the nightside produce thermal emission signals of no more than 1 ppm, remaining below the current detectability threshold in thermal phase curves.

However, for most models, outgassing rates are increased near the day-night terminators and future studies should assess whether such localised outgassing could lead to atmospheric signatures in transmission spectroscopy.

Tobias G. Meier, Claire Marie Guimond, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Jayne Birkby, Richard D. Chatterjee, Chloe E. Fisher, Gregor J. Golabek, Mark Hammond, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Tim Lichtenberg, Alex McGinty, Erik Meier Valdés, Harrison Nicholls, Luke T. Parker, Rob J. Spaargaren, Paul J. Tackley

Comments: 19 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables; Accepted for publication in MNRAS
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.02408 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2603.02408v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.02408
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Submission history
From: Tobias Gabriel Meier
[v1] Mon, 2 Mar 2026 21:34:09 UTC (8,975 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02408

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