Related papers: Jupiter's Occultation Radii: Implications for its …
The shape of the two gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, is determined primarily by their rotation rate, and interior density distribution. It is also affected by their zonal winds, causing an anomaly of O(10 km) at low latitudes. However,…
We develop a numerical method for directly computing the dissipative dynamical tidal response of rapidly rotating, oblate stars and gaseous planets with realistic internal structures. Applying these calculations to neutrally and stably…
Physical conditions in the atmospheres of tidally-locked, slowly-rotating hot Jupiters correspond to dynamical circulation regimes with Rhines scales and Rossby deformation radii comparable to the planetary radii. Consequently, the large…
Polytropes have long been used to model a wide variety of astrophysical objects. A bipolytrope (composite polytrope) may be used for bodies with a distinct core-envelope structure. In this short paper, I demonstrate that a rotating…
The extremely close proximity of hot Jupiters to their parent stars has dramatically affected both their atmospheres and interiors, inflating them to up to twice the radius of Jupiter. The physical mechanism responsible for this inflation…
Anderson & Schubert (2007, Science,317,1384) proposed that Saturn's rotation period can be ascertained by minimizing the dynamic heights of the 100 mbar isosurface with respect to the geoid; they derived a rotation period of 10h 32m 35s. We…
Properties of inertial modes of Jupiter are investigated for an n=1 polytropic description of the planet interior. We use the anelastic approximation to overcome the usual handicap of a severe spherical harmonics truncation. A powerful…
The primordial structure of Jupiter remains uncertain, yet it holds vital clues on the planet's formation and early evolution. Recent work used dynamical constraints from Jupiter's inner moons to determine its primordial state, thereby…
Context. The Juno spacecraft has obtained highly accurate tidal Love numbers, which provide important constraints on the tidal response and interior structure of Jupiter. Aims. In order to exploit these observations, it is necessary to…
We investigate the possibility of substantial inflation of short-period Jupiter-mass planets, as a result of their internal tidal dissipation associated with the synchronization and circularization of their orbits. We employ the simplest…
The zonal flow in Jupiter's upper troposphere is organized into alternating retrograde and prograde jets, with a prograde (superrotating) jet at the equator. Existing models posit as the driver of the flow either differential radiative…
The orbit of Mercury has large values of eccentricity and inclination that cannot be easily explained if this planet formed on a circular and coplanar orbit. Here, we study the evolution of Mercury's orbit during the instability related to…
There have been many proposed explanations for the larger-than-expected radii of some transiting hot Jupiters, including either stellar or orbital energy deposition deep in the atmosphere or deep in the interior. In this paper, we explore…
With JWST we can now characterize the atmospheres of planets on longer orbital planets, but this moves us into a regime where we cannot assume that tidal forces from the star have eroded planets' obliquities and synchronized their rotation…
The accurate determination of Saturn's gravitational coefficients by Cassini could provide tighter constrains on Saturn's internal structure. Also, occultation measurements provide important information on the planetary shape which is often…
Jupiter's atmosphere-interior is a coupled fluid dynamical system strongly influenced by the rapid background rotation. While the visible atmosphere features east-west zonal winds on the order of 100 m/s (Tollefson et al. 2017), zonal flows…
The zonal winds on the surfaces of giant planets vary with latitude. Jupiter and Saturn, for example, have several bands of alternating eastward (prograde) and westward (retrograde) jets relative to the angular velocity of their global…
We present three-dimensional atmospheric circulation models of a hypothetical "warm Jupiter" planet, for a range of possible obliquities from 0-90 degrees. We model a Jupiter-mass planet on a 10-day orbit around a Sun-like star, since this…
Via the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, it is possible to measure the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin and a planet's orbital spin. Observed orbital inclinations have been found to range over all possible angles. A tentative…
We study the feasibility of observationally constraining the rotation rate of hot Jupiters, planets that are typically assumed to have been tidally locked into synchronous rotation. We use a three-dimensional General Circulation Model to…