English

Resistive MHD Simulations of Stellar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling in TRAPPIST-1e

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2026-05-26 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

Close-in terrestrial exoplanets around M dwarfs reside in dense, magnetized winds, where non-ideal plasma coupling can strongly affect how electromagnetic energy is redistributed within the dayside interaction region. We present three-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the TRAPPIST-1 wind interacting with a dipolar TRAPPIST-1e magnetosphere for three stellar-wind forcing cases and four prescribed magnetic diffusivities, η=(0, 538.018, 5.38018×108, 5.38018×1012)\eta=(0,\ 538.018,\ 5.38018\times10^{8},\ 5.38018\times10^{12}) cm2^{2} s1^{-1}. Energy transport is diagnosed using maps of the total energy density, the magnitude of the total Poynting flux, and the divergence of the total Poynting flux. We further estimate a radio-power proxy from the volume integral of Stotal\nabla\cdot \mathbf{S}_{\rm total} over the dayside bow-shock and magnetopause layers. Across all cases, increasing prescribed η\eta broadens the coupling layer and shifts the dominant energy-conversion regions from thin, patchy boundary arcs to thicker, more spatially extended structures, with an increasing relative contribution from the magnetopause. The inferred radio-power proxy increases by several orders of magnitude across the explored scan. However, because the estimated numerical magnetic diffusivity in the strongest-gradient regions is ηnum1015\eta_{\rm num}\sim10^{15}-101610^{16} cm2^{2} s1^{-1}, the present η\eta scan is best interpreted as a controlled sensitivity study rather than as a direct constraint on the physical diffusivity of the TRAPPIST-1e environment. For the adopted planetary fields (Beq=0.32B_{\rm eq}=0.32-1.281.28 G), the maximum cyclotron frequencies are νc,max1.8\nu_{c,\max}\approx1.8-7.27.2 MHz, below the ground-based window, implying that meaningful radio constraints on TRAPPIST-1e magnetism will require space-based observations below 10 MHz or substantially stronger planetary fields than those assumed here.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.00191,
  title  = {Resistive MHD Simulations of Stellar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling in TRAPPIST-1e},
  author = {J. J. González-Avilés and N. Baltazar Pérez-Negrón and A. Segura},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.00191},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society