Magnetically Controlled Circulation on Hot Extrasolar Planets
Abstract
Through the process of thermal ionization, intense stellar irradiation renders hot Jupiter atmospheres electrically conductive. Simultaneously, lateral variability in the irradiation drives the global circulation with peak wind speeds of the order of ~km s^(–1). In turn, the interactions between the atmospheric flows and the background magnetic field give rise to Lorentz forces that can act to perturb the flow away from its purely hydrodynamical counterpart. Using analytical theory and numerical simulations, we show here that significant deviations away from axisymmetric circulation are unstable in presence of a non-negligible axisymmetric magnetic field. Specifically, our results suggest that dayside-to-nightside flows, often obtained within the context of three-dimensional circulation models, only exist on objects with anomalously low magnetic fields, while the majority of highly irradiated exoplanetary atmospheres are entirely dominated by zonal jets.
Additional Information
© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 May 31; accepted 2013 July 29; published 2013 September 25. We thank Adam Showman, Kristen Menou, Peter Goldreich, and Greg Laughlin for useful conversations, as well as the anonymous referee for a thorough and insightful report. K.B. acknowledges the generous support from the ITC Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute for Theory and Computation, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. S.S. acknowledges funding by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Attached Files
Published - 0004-637X_776_1_53.pdf
Submitted - 1307.8038v1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 42211
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20131104-090105732
- Institute for Theory and Computation ITC Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Created
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2013-11-04Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences