Related papers: Remarks on compressible convection in Super-Earths
In the quest to understand the basic universal features of compressible convection, one would like to disentangle genuine consequences of compression from spatial variations of transport properties. In the present work, we consider a very…
Simple scalings suggest that super-Earths are more likely than an equivalent Earth-sized planet to be undergoing plate tectonics. Generally, viscosity and thermal conductivity increase with pressure while thermal expansivity decreases,…
The impact of variable material properties, such as temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and dynamical viscosity, on the dynamics of a fully compressible turbulent convection flow beyond the anelastic limit are studied in the present…
Buoyancy-driven turbulent convection leads to a fully compressible flow with a strong top-down asymmetry of first- and second-order statistics when the adiabatic equilibrium profiles of temperature, density and pressure decay very strongly…
An experiment of thermal convection with significant compressible effects is presented. The high-gravity environment of a centrifuge and the choice of xenon gas enable us to observe an average adiabatic temperature gradient up to 3.5 K…
Condensed planets contract or expand as their temperature changes. With the exception of the effect of phase changes, this phenomenon is generally interpreted as being solely related to the thermal expansivity of the planet's components.…
Numerical simulations of turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection in an ideal gas, using either the anelastic approximation or the fully compressible equations, are compared. Theoretically, the anelastic approximation is expected to hold in…
In an atmosphere, a cloud condensation region is characterized by a strong vertical gradient in the abundance of the related condensing species. On Earth, the ensuing gradient of mean molecular weight has relatively few dynamical…
Condensible substances are nearly ubiquitous in planetary atmospheres. For the most familiar case-water vapor in Earth's present climate-the condensible gas is dilute, in the sense that its concentration is everywhere small relative to the…
The Kepler observations indicate that many exoplanets are super-Earths, which brings about a puzzle for the core-accretion scenario. Since observed super-Earths are in the range of critical mass, they would accrete gas efficiently and…
Convection in astrophysical systems must be maintained against dissipation. Although the effects of dissipation are often assumed to be negligible, theory suggests that in strongly stratified convecting fluids, the dissipative heating rate…
We investigate the effects of radiative energy transfer on a series of nested-grid, high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of gas and particle dynamics in the vicinity of an Earth-mass planetary embryo. We include heating due to the…
It has recently been recognized that the convective velocities achieved in the current solar convection simulations might be over-estimated. The newly-revealed effects of the prevailing small-scale magnetic field within the convection zone…
Convective processes are crucial in shaping exoplanetary atmospheres but are computationally expensive to simulate directly. A novel technique of simulating moist convection on tidally locked exoplanets is to use a global 3D model with a…
We have numerically studied the thermal evolution of various-mass terrestrial planets in habitable zones, focusing on duration of dynamo activity to generate their intrinsic magnetic fields, which may be one of key factors in habitability…
The linear theory for rotating compressible convection in a plane layer geometry is presented for the astrophysically-relevant case of low Prandtl number gases. When the rotation rate of the system is large, the flow remains geostrophically…
Some recently discovered short-period Earth to Neptune sized exoplanets (super Earths) have low observed mean densities which can only be explained by voluminous gaseous atmospheres. Here, we study the conditions allowing the accretion and…
Eccentricity is an important orbital parameter. Understanding its effect on planetary climate and habitability is critical for us to search for a habitable world beyond our solar system. The orbital configurations of M-dwarf planets are…
Sub-Neptunes and Neptunes are often modeled with distinct, fully convective layers. Yet, there are several arguments for compositions gradients that can inhibit convection. In these regions, energy transport depends on the thermal…
We explore the possibility that large-scale convection be inhibited over some regions of giant planet interiors, as a consequence of a gradient of composition inherited either from their formation history or from particular events like…