English

A test of the Dedalus software for exoplanet atmospheric dynamics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2026-03-12 v1 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

Studying exoplanet flow and variability requires solving atmospheric dynamics equations accurately. Here we use the shallow-water equations to evaluate and employ Dedalus3, a spectral method-based software package for solving differential equations. A well-known jet instability test is used for the evaluation; then, the package is used to investigate the nonlinear evolution of observed, Jupiter's zonal (east--west) jets; finally, the package is used to compare hot-Jupiter flows with different initial conditions. Our results indicate that Dedalus3 can be a useful tool for investigating planetary flow dynamics, but careful testing and execution are necessary for each problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.10076,
  title  = {A test of the Dedalus software for exoplanet atmospheric dynamics},
  author = {Rick Bonhof and Quentin Changeat and James Y-K. Cho},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.10076},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

4 pages, Accepted in Research Notes of the AAS