We use results of shallow-water magnetohydrodynamics (SWMHD) to place estimates on the minimum magnetic field strengths required to cause atmospheric wind variations (and therefore westward venturing hotspots) for a dataset of hot Jupiters (HJs), including HAT-P-7b, CoRoT-2b, Kepler-76, WASP-12b, and WASP-33b, on which westward hotspots have been observationally inferred. For HAT-P-7b and CoRoT-2b our estimates agree with past results; for Kepler-76b we find that the critical dipolar magnetic field strength, over which the observed wind variations can be explained by magnetism, lies between 4\mboxG and 19\mboxG; for WASP-12b and WASP-33b westward hotspots can be explained by 1\mboxG and 2\mboxG dipolar fields respectively. Additionally, to guide future observational missions, we identify 61 further HJs that are likely to exhibit magnetically-driven atmospheric wind variations and predict these variations are highly-likely in ∼40 of the hottest HJs.
@article{arxiv.2107.10848,
title = {Observational Consequences of Shallow-water Magnetohydrodynamics on Hot Jupiters},
author = {A. W. Hindle and P. J. Bushby and T. M. Rogers},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.10848},
year = {2021}
}