Markers of planet migration in the population of planetary cores

We now know of planets numbering in the thousands. This tells us that planets are common, enough to be a usual occurrence around stars like the sun. However, despite this increasing number of planets, finding out more detail about them is difficult. What are the planets made of, and how did they form and evolve to leave the planets we see? Finding out how other solar systems formed allows us to place our own Solar System in context. Perhaps we are typical, or perhaps unique - this knowledge changes how we think about the Earth and our life upon it.

One way to study how other planets form is to look at their cores. The planetary core shows the environment it began in, with its composition telling us what materials were present at its beginning, before it obtained an envelope of gas. We still do not know any great detail about the cores of Jupiter and Saturn, because their gas envelopes block the core from view, and the same is true of other worlds. But planets close to their host star receive a lot of light and energy, enough to evaporate the gas and reveal the core. By uncovering a new population of these planets, I want to find out the dominant composition of their cores, discovering if they formed differently from others. As such short period planets do not exist in the Solar System, I will be uncovering the evidence of a new type of planetary evolution and history.