The photoevaporation model is one of the leading explanations for the evolution of small, close-in planets and the origin of the radius-valley. However, without planet mass measurements, it is challenging to test the photoevaporation scenario. Even if masses are available for individual planets, the host star's unknown EUV/X-ray history makes it difficult to assess the role of photoevaporation. We show that systems with multiple transiting planets are the best in which to rigorously test the photoevaporation model. By scaling one planet to another in a multi-transiting system, the host star's uncertain EUV/X-ray history can be negated. By focusing on systems that contain planets that straddle the radius-valley, one can estimate the minimum-masses of planets above the radius-valley (and thus are assumed to have retained a voluminous hydrogen/helium envelope). This minimum-mass is estimated by assuming that the planet below the radius-valley entirely lost its initial hydrogen/helium envelope, then calculating how massive any planet above the valley needs to be to retain its envelope. We apply this method to 104 planets above the radius gap in 73 systems for which precise enough radii measurements are available. We find excellent agreement with the photoevaporation model. Only two planets (Kepler -100c & 142c) appear to be inconsistent, suggesting they had a different formation history or followed a different evolutionary pathway to the bulk of the population. Our method can be used to identify TESS systems that warrant radial-velocity follow-up to further test the photoevaporation model.The software to estimate minimum planet masses is publicly available at: https://github.com/jo276/EvapMass

We report on precise Doppler measurements of L231-32 (TOI-270), a nearby M dwarf (d = 22 pc, M⋆ = 0.39 M⊙, R⋆ = 0.38 R⊙), which hosts three transiting planets that were recently discovered using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The three planets are 1.2, 2.4, and 2.1 times the size of Earth and have orbital periods of 3.4, 5.7, and 11.4 days. We obtained 29 high-resolution optical spectra with the newly commissioned Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) and 58 spectra using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS). From these observations, we find the masses of the planets to be 1.58 ± 0.26, 6.15 ± 0.37, and 4.78 ± 0.43 M⊕, respectively. The combination of radius and mass measurements suggests that the innermost planet has a rocky composition similar to that of Earth, while the outer two planets have lower densities. Thus, the inner planet and the outer planets are on opposite sides of the ‘radius valley’ — a region in the radius-period diagram with relatively few members, which has been interpreted as a consequence of atmospheric photo-evaporation. We place these findings into the context of other small close-in planets orbiting M dwarf stars, and use support vector machines to determine the location and slope of the M dwarf (Teff < 4000 K) radius valley as a function of orbital period. We compare the location of the M dwarf radius valley to the radius valley observed for FGK stars, and find that its location is a good match to photo-evaporation and core-powered mass loss models. Finally, we show that planets below the M dwarf radius valley have compositions consistent with stripped rocky cores, whereas most planets above have a lower density consistent with the presence of a H-He atmosphere.