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Mantas Zilinskas

Photo of Mantas Zilinskas

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Exoplanet Discovery and Science

Biography

Mantas was born in Lithuania and spent a large portion of his youth there, primarily in the county of Klaipėda near the Baltic Sea. He completed his undergraduate studies in the United Kingdom, earning a BSc and MSc in Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Leeds. Later, he moved to Leiden, the Netherlands, where he obtained his PhD in Astrophysics from Leiden University.

Mantas has a strong interest in the characterization of exoplanets. In particular, he focuses on understanding the nature of extremely irradiated worlds, such as lava planets. During his PhD, he dedicated most of his research to studying lava planets, including 55 Cancri e, modeling their potential atmospheres and predicting the future JWST observability of small short-period planets.

Mantas continues to work on modeling exoplanet atmospheres, aiming to predict what new discoveries await us and how we can utilize the latest observatories to uncover them. As a theorist, he strives to collaborate closely with observers to bridge the gap between theory and observation.

Education

  • PhD in Astrophysics – Leiden University (2023)
  • MSc & BSc in Physics & Astronomy – Leeds University (2018)

Professional Experience

  • Research Scientist (PostDoc) at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research working on modelling exoplanet atmospheres for future JWST observations.
  • PhD Researcher at Leiden University working on characterization of lava worlds. (Not sure if this is supposed to go here, but in the Netherlands PhD research is considered as professional experience).

Research Interests

Exoplanet atmospheres, rocky worlds, lava worlds, sub-Neptunes, forward modelling (kinetics and equilibrium), JWST observability.

Selected Publications

First Author Publications

  1. Lava worlds: characterizing atmospheres of impossible nature (PhD Thesis) (Leiden University 2023).
  2. Observability of silicates in volatile atmospheres of super-Earths and sub-Neptune's (Astronomy & Astrophysics 2023).
  3. Observability of Evaporating Lava Worlds (Astronomy & Astrophysics 2022).
  4. Temperature inversions on hot super-Earths: the case of CN in nitrogen-rich atmospheres (MNRAS 2020).
  5. Atmospheric compositions and observability of nitrogen dominated ultra-short period super-Earths (MNRAS 2020).

Contributing Publications

  1. Mapping the Surface and Atmosphere of a Lava Planet K2-141 b (In prep.)
  2. A Secondary Atmosphere on the Rocky Exoplanet 55 Cnc e (Nature 2024).
  3. LavAtmos: An open‐source chemical equilibrium vaporization code for lava worlds (Meteoritics & Planetary Science 2023).
  4. The Deep Atmospheric Composition of Jupiter from Thermochemical Calculations Based on Galileo and Juno Data (Remote Sensing 2023).
  5. K2 and Spitzer phase curves of the rocky ultra-short-period planet K2-141 b hint at a tenuous rock vapor atmosphere (Astronomy & Astrophysics 2022).
  6. Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years (arXiv 2021).