Related papers: Oceanic Superrotation on Tidally Locked Planets
Planets with non-zero obliquity and/or orbital eccentricity experience seasonal variations of stellar irradiation at local latitudes. The extent of the atmospheric response can be crudely estimated by the ratio between the orbital timescale…
Observations of planets throughout our Solar System have revealed that the Earth is not alone in possessing natural, inter-annual atmospheric cycles. The equatorial middle atmospheres of the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn all exhibit a…
We consider super-Earth sized planets which have a water mass fraction that is large enough to form an external mantle composed of high pressure water ice polymorphs and that lack a substantial H/He atmosphere. We consider such planets in…
In a multiplanet system, tides acting on the inner planet can significantly affect the orbital evolution of the entire system. While tides usually damp eccentricities, a novel mechanism identified by Correia et al. (2012) tends to raise…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…
Moons orbiting rocky exoplanets in compact orbits about other stars experience an accelerated tidal evolution, and can either merge with their parent planet or reach the limit of dynamical instability within a Hubble time. We review the…
Hot Jupiters are expected to form far from their host star and move toward close-in, circular orbits via a smooth, monotonic decay due to mild and constant tidal dissipation. Yet, three systems have recently been found exhibiting…
Tidally locked gas giants are typically in several-day orbits, implying a modest role for rotation in the atmospheric circulation. Nevertheless, there exist a class of gas-giant, highly irradiated objects---brown dwarfs orbiting white…
Gaseous giants are characterized by their deep atmospheres, which lack clear boundaries with their interiors; therefore, their internal states could directly influence atmospheric dynamics. So far, most modeling studies have considered deep…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
Context: The superrotation phenomenon in the atmosphere on Venus has been known since the late 60's. But until now no mechanism proposed has satisfactorily explained this phenomenon. Objective: The aim of this research is to propose a…
Since the 1950s, quasi-periodic oscillations have been studied in the terrestrial equatorial stratosphere. Other planets of the solar system present (or are expected to present) such oscillations, like the Jupiter Equatorial…
We present a time-dependent radiative model for the atmosphere of extrasolar planets that takes into account the eccentricity of their orbit. In addition to the modulation of stellar irradiation by the varying planet-star distance, the…
A planet's axial tilt ("obliquity") substantially affects its atmosphere and habitability. It is thus essential to comprehend the various mechanisms that can excite planetary obliquities, particularly at the primordial stage. Here, we…
Layered semi-convection could operate in giant planets, potentially explaining the constraints on the heavy elements distribution in Jupiter deduced recently from Juno observations, and contributing to Saturn's luminosity excess or the…
The atmospheres of highly irradiated exoplanets are observed to undergo hydrodynamic escape. However, due to strong pressures, stellar winds can confine planetary atmospheres, reducing their escape. Here, we investigate under which…
We study the effects of gravity waves, or g-modes, on hot extrasolar planets. These planets are expected to possess stably-stratified atmospheres, which support gravity waves. In this paper, we review the derivation of the equation that…
The presence of rings and moons around exoplanets is likely to be one of the next great discoveries in exoplanet research. Using theories developed for the Solar System, we explore the possibility of coupled ring-moon cycles around…
Interpretation of the ongoing efforts to simulate the atmospheres of potentially-habitable terrestrial exoplanets requires that we understand the underlying dynamics and chemistry of such objects to a much greater degree than 1D or even…
As the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres proceeds, providing insights into atmospheric chemistry and composition, a key question is how much deeper into the planet we might be able to see from its atmospheric properties alone. For…