Related papers: On the radiative equilibrium of irradiated planeta…
The recent discovery and characterization of the diversity of the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs calls for the development of fast and accurate analytical models. We quantify the accuracy of the analytical solution derived in…
The anomalously large radii of strongly irradiated exoplanets have remained a major puzzle in astronomy. Based on a 2D steady state atmospheric circulation model, the validity of which is assessed by comparison to 3D calculations, we reveal…
We show that a consistent fit to observed secondary eclipse data for several strongly irradiated transiting planets demands a temperature inversion (stratosphere) at altitude. Such a thermal inversion significantly influences the…
The interior flux of a giant planet impacts atmospheric motion, and the atmosphere dictates the interior's cooling. Here we use a non-hydrostatic general circulation model (Simulating Nonhydrostatic Atmospheres on Planets, SNAP) coupled…
Many parameters constraining the spectral appearance of exoplanets are still poorly understood. We therefore study the properties of irradiated exoplanet atmospheres over a wide parameter range including metallicity, C/O ratio and host…
We present a sequence of toy models for irradiated planet atmospheres, in which the effects of geometry and energy redistribution are modelled self-consistently. We use separate but coupled grey atmosphere models to treat the ingoing…
One-dimensional (vertical) models of planetary atmospheres typically balance the net solar and internal energy fluxes against the net thermal radiative and convective heat fluxes to determine an equilibrium thermal structure. Thus,simple…
We present an analytic 1-D radiative-convective model of the thermal structure of planetary atmospheres. Our model assumes that thermal radiative transfer is gray and can be represented by the two-stream approximation. Model atmospheres are…
Spitzer Space Telescope infrared observations indicate that several transiting extrasolar giant planets have thermal inversions in their upper atmospheres. Above a relative minimum, the temperature appears to increase with altitude. Such an…
The Milky Way Galaxy is literally teeming with exoplanets; thousands of planets have been discovered, with thousands more planet candidates identified. Terrestrial-like planets are quite common around other stars, and are expected to be…
As a planet ages it cools and its radius shrinks, at a rate set by the efficiency with which heat is transported from the interior out to space. The bottleneck for this transport is at the boundary between the convective interior and the…
Atmospheres regulate the planetary heat loss and therefore influence planetary thermal evolution. Uncertainty in a giant planet's thermal state contributes to the uncertainty in the inferred abundance of heavy elements it contains. Within…
We find that a theoretical fit to all the HD 209458b data at secondary eclipse requires that the dayside atmosphere of HD 209458b have a thermal inversion and a stratosphere. This inversion is caused by the capture of optical stellar flux…
Context. Semi-grey atmospheric models (with one opacity for the visible and one opacity for the infrared) are useful to understand the global structure of irradiated atmospheres, their dynamics and the interior structure and evolution of…
We present a comprehensive analytical study of radiative transfer using the method of moments and include the effects of non-isotropic scattering in the coherent limit. Within this unified formalism, we derive the governing equations and…
Recent transmission spectroscopy has revealed that clouds and hazes are common in the atmospheres of close-in exoplanets. In this study, using the photochemical, microphysical, and transmission spectrum models for close-in warm ($\lesssim$…
The thermal evolution and interior structure of giant exoplanets are sensitive to the treatment of radiative opacity. At temperatures of ~2000 K, depletion of alkali metals can create a window of reduced opacity, potentially giving rise to…
[Abridged] A key hypothesis in the field of exoplanet atmospheres is the trend of atmospheric thermal structure with planetary equilibrium temperature. We explore this trend and report here the first statistical detection of a transition in…
We propose a general principle that under the radiative-convective equilibrium, the spatial and temporal variations in a planet's surface and atmosphere tend to increase its cooling. This principle is based on Jensen's inequality and the…
Transiting planets provide a unique opportunity to study the atmospheres of extra-solar planets. Radiative hydrodynamical models of the atmosphere provide a crucial link between the physical characteristics of the atmosphere and the…