Related papers: Early-time small-scale structures in hot-exoplanet…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
It is widely accepted that the Universe underwent a period of thermal equilibrium at very early times. One expects a residue of this primordial state to be imprinted on the large scale structure of space time. In this paper we study the…
Gas giant exoplanets orbiting at close distances to the parent star are subjected to large radiation and stellar wind fluxes. In this paper, hydrodynamic simulations of the planetary upper atmosphere and its interaction with the stellar…
Growing observational evidence suggests that Class II protoplanetary disks may undergo substantial interactions with their environment in the form of late infall. This mass inflow predominantly manifests itself in the form of so-called…
Improving upon our purely dynamical work, we present three-dimensional simulations of the atmospheric circulation on Earth-like (exo)planets and hot Jupiters using the GFDL-Princeton Flexible Modeling System (FMS). As the first steps away…
Planetary rotation rate is a key parameter in determining atmospheric circulation and hence the spatial pattern of clouds. Since clouds can exert a dominant control on planetary radiation balance, rotation rate could be critical for…
More than two decades after the widespread detection of Jovian-class planets on short-period orbits around other stars, their dynamical origins remain imperfectly understood. In the traditional narrative, these highly irradiated giant…
We elucidate the interplay between Newtonian thermal relaxation and numerical dissipation, of several different origins, in flow simulations of hot extrasolar planet atmospheres. Currently, a large range of Newtonian relaxation, or…
We use direct numerical simulations to investigate the interaction between the temperature field of a fluid and the temperature of small particles suspended in the flow, employing both one and two-way thermal coupling, in a statistically…
Supersonic flows are expected to exist in the atmospheres of irradiated exoplanets, but the question of whether shocks develop lingers. Specifically, it reduces to whether continuous flow in a closed loop may become supersonic and if some…
We investigate baroclinic instability in flow conditions relevant to hot extrasolar planets. The instability is important for transporting and mixing heat, as well as for influencing large-scale variability on the planets. Both linear…
At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…
Planets that form early enough to be embedded in the circumstellar gas disk accumulate thick atmospheres of nebular gas. Models of these atmospheres need to specify the surface luminosity (i.e. energy loss rate) of the planet. This…
With the new generation of space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it is possible to better characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets. The atmospheres of Hot and Ultra Hot Jupiters are highly heterogeneous and…
There is evidence that exoplanet systems display intra-system uniformity in mass, radius, and orbital spacing (like ``peas in a pod'') when compared with the system-to-system variations of planetary systems. This has been interpreted as the…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
We investigate the evolution of interfaces among phases of the interstellar medium with different temperature. It is found that, for some initial conditions, the dynamical effects related to conductive fronts are very important even if…
We provide a brief review of many aspects of the planetary physics of hot Jupiters. Our aim is to cover most of the major areas of current study while providing the reader with additional references for more detailed follow-up. We first…
We present a semi-analytic model atmosphere for close-in exoplanets that captures the essential physics of phase curves: orbital and viewing geometry, advection, and re-radiation. We calibrate the model with the well-characterized…
Feedbacks that can destabilize the climates of synchronously-rotating rocky planets may arise on planets with strong day-night surface temperature contrasts. Earth-like habitable-zone (HZ) planets maintain stable surface liquid water over…