Related papers: East-west faults due to planetary contraction
Soft or Deformable Plate Tectonics in the sphere must follow geometric rules inferred from the orthographic projection. An analytic equivalent of this geometry can be derived by the application of Potential Field Methods in the case of…
Tidal effects arise from differential and inelastic deformation of a planet by a perturbing body. The continuous action of tides modify the rotation of the planet together with its orbit until an equilibrium situation is reached. It is…
The stellar spin orientation relative to the orbital planes of multiplanet systems are becoming accessible to observations. Here, we analyze and classify different types of spin-orbit evolution in compact multiplanet systems perturbed by an…
Recent discoveries of several transiting planets with clearly non-zero eccentricities and some large inclinations started changing the simple picture of close-in planets having circular and well-aligned orbits. Two major scenarios to form…
Jupiter's poles feature striking polygons of cyclones that drift westward over time, a motion governed by beta-drift (vortex motion caused by the latitudinal variation of the Coriolis force). This study investigates how beta-drift and the…
Gravitational, magnetic and superfluid forces can stress the crust of an evolving neutron star. Fracture of the crust under these stresses could affect the star's spin evolution and generate high-energy emission. We study the growth of…
It is widely assumed that a star and its protoplanetary disk are initially aligned, with the stellar equator parallel to the disk plane. When observations reveal a misalignment between stellar rotation and the orbital motion of a planet,…
We study the evolution of eastward propagating dipoles (modons) in a two-layer quasi-geostrophic $\beta$-plane model using high-resolution numerical simulations. Various combinations of background gradients of potential vorticity in the…
The rotation of a star and the revolutions of its planets are not necessarily aligned. This article reviews the measurement techniques, key findings, and theoretical interpretations related to the obliquities (spin-orbit angles) of…
Homoepitaxial growth is unstable towards the formation of pyramidal mounds when interlayer transport is reduced due to activation barriers to hopping at step edges. Simulations of a lattice model and a continuum equation show that a small…
I present results from the first global hydrodynamical simulations of the elliptical instability in a tidally deformed gaseous planet (or star) with a free surface. The elliptical instability is potentially important for tidal evolution of…
Glitches are commonly observed for pulsars, which are explained by various mechanisms. One hypothesis attributes the glitch effect to the instantaneous moment of inertia change of the whole star caused by a starquake, which is similar to…
We have investigated the obliquity evolution of terrestrial planets in habitable zones (at ~ 1AU) in extrasolar planetary systems, due to tidal interactions with their satellite and host star with wide varieties of satellite-to-planet mass…
Pulsars show a steady decrease in their rotational frequency, occasionally interrupted by sudden spin-ups called glitches, whose physical origin is still a mystery. One suggested explanation for at least the small glitches are starquakes,…
The theory of plate tectonics describes some basic global tectonic processes as a result of motion of lithospheric plates. The boundary between lithosphere and asthenosphere (LAB) is defined by a difference in response to stress. Position…
The processes leading deformation and destruction of planets spiraling into the convective envelope of their host stars are described. The planet is compressed by the ram pressure, and deformed into a flattened shape for which a…
The elliptical instability is a generic instability which takes place in any rotating flow whose streamlines are elliptically deformed. Up to now, it has been widely studied in the case of a constant, non-zero differential rotation between…
From the previous study (Hiremath 2009b; Hiremath 2010), on the genesis of solar cycle and activity phenomena, it is understood that sunspots are formed at different depths by superposition of Alfven wave perturbations of a strong toroidal…
The classical Laplace surface defines the location of circular particle orbits that do not undergo nodal precession around a planet with some obliquity. Close to the planet the surface coincides with the equator of the planet, while far…
I show that a cumulative contraction or expansion must result from repetitive tidal action in a curved stress field, depending on the direction of the curvature. The resulting expansion of solid materials onboard deep space probes and the…