Related papers: Tidal Locking of Habitable Exoplanets
Extra-solar planets close to their host stars have likely undergone significant tidal evolution since the time of their formation. Tides probably dominated their orbital evolution once the dust and gas had cleared away, and as the orbits…
Terrestrial planets at the inner edge of the habitable zone of late-K and M-dwarf stars are expected to be in synchronous rotation, as a consequence of strong tidal interactions with their host stars. Previous global climate model (GCM)…
Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly closer to the star than the one around our Sun, which leads…
Moons orbiting extrasolar planets are the next class of object to be observed and characterized for possible habitability. Like the host-planets to their host-star, exomoons have a limiting radius at which they may be gravitationally bound,…
Recent studies have shown that ocean dynamics can have a significant warming effect on the permanent night sides of 1 to 1 tidally locked terrestrial exoplanets with Earth-like atmospheres and oceans in the middle of the habitable zone.…
The architecture of many exoplanetary systems is different from the solar system, with exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. We can expect interactions between the star and…
Superrotation is a common feature of quickly rotating gas giants, slowly rotating planetary bodies, and tidally-locked planets. In this paper we compare and contrast the mechanisms of superrotation in slow rotators and tidally-locked…
The habitable zone (HZ) is the circumstellar region where a planet can sustain surface liquid water. Searching for terrestrial planets in the HZ of nearby stars is the stated goal of ongoing and planned extrasolar planet surveys. Previous…
Planets close to their host stars are believed to undergo significant tidal interactions, leading to a progressive damping of the orbital eccentricity. Here we show that, when the orbit of the planet is excited by an outer companion, tidal…
Is there oceanic superrotation on exoplanets? Atmospheric superrotation, characterized by west-to-east winds over the equator, is a common phenomenon in the atmospheres of Venus, Titan, Saturn, Jupiter, and tidally locked exoplanets. The…
Many stars, including those in binary or multiple systems, exhibit modified rotational evolution due to tidal interactions. While magnetic braking slows rotation in single stars, close binaries experience synchronization from tidal forces,…
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…
Earth-scale planets in the classical habitable zone (HZ) are more likely to be habitable if they possess active geophysics. Without a constant internal energy source, planets cool as they age, eventually terminating tectonic activity and…
Tidal interaction between an exoplanet and its host star is a possible pathway to transfer angular momentum between the planetary orbit and the stellar spin. In cases where the planetary orbital period is shorter than the stellar rotation…
Thermal, orbital, and rotational dynamics of tidally loaded exoplanets are interconnected by intricate feedback. The rheological structure of the planet determines its susceptibility to tidal deformation and, as a consequence, participates…
The rotation period of some planet-hosting stars appears to be in close commensurability with the orbital period of their close-by planets. A model is proposed to interpret such a phenomenon based on the excitation of resonant oscillations…
Exomoons may play an important role in determining the habitability of worlds outside of our solar system. They can stabilize conditions, alter the climate by breaking tidal locking with the parent star, drive tidal heating, and perhaps…
We provide a generalized discussion of tidal evolution to arbitrary order in the expansion of the gravitational potential between two spherical bodies of any mass ratio. To accurately reproduce the tidal evolution of a system at separations…
The inner moons of Jupiter and Saturn migrate outwards due to tidal energy dissipation within the planets, the details of which remain poorly understood. We demonstrate that resonance locking between moons and internal oscillation modes of…
Tidal interactions in close stellar binaries are central to their orbital and rotational evolution, making observational tests of theoretical predictions essential for our understanding of the evolution of these, as well as close…