No Arabic abstract
Hot stars with hot Jupiters have a wide range of obliquities, while cool stars with hot Jupiters tend to have low obliquities. An enticing explanation for this pattern is tidal realignment of the cool host stars, although this explanation assumes that obliquity damping occurs faster than orbital decay, an assumption that needs further exploration. Here we revisit this tidal realignment problem, building on previous work identifying a low-frequency component of the time-variable tidal potential that affects the obliquity but not the orbital separation. We adopt a recent empirically-based model for the stellar tidal quality factor and its sharp increase with forcing frequency. This leads to enhanced dissipation at low frequencies, and efficient obliquity damping. We model the tidal evolution of 46 observed hot Jupiters orbiting cool stars. A key parameter is the stellar age, which we determine in a homogeneous manner for the sample, taking advantage of Gaia DR2 data. We explore a variety of tidal histories and futures for each system, finding in most cases that the stellar obliquity is successfully damped before the planet is destroyed. A testable prediction of our model is that hot-Jupiter hosts with orbital periods shorter than 2--3 days should have obliquities much smaller than $1^circ$. With the possible exception of WASP-19b, the predicted future lifetimes of the planets range from $10^8$,yr to more than $10^{10}$,yr. Thus, our model implies that these hot Jupiters are probably not in immediate danger of being devoured by their host stars while they are on the main sequence.
Context: The anomalously large radii of hot Jupiters has long been a mystery. However, by combining both theoretical arguments and 2D models, a recent study has suggested that the vertical advection of potential temperature leads to an adiabatic temperature profile in the deep atmosphere hotter than the profile obtained with standard 1D models. Aims: In order to confirm the viability of that scenario, we extend this investigation to three dimensional, time-dependent, models. Methods: We use a 3D GCM, DYNAMICO to perform a series of calculations designed to explore the formation and structure of the driving atmospheric circulations, and detail how it responds to changes in both upper and deep atmospheric forcing. Results: In agreement with the previous, 2D, study, we find that a hot adiabat is the natural outcome of the long-term evolution of the deep atmosphere. Integration times of order $1500$ years are needed for that adiabat to emerge from an isothermal atmosphere, explaining why it has not been found in previous hot Jupiter studies. Models initialised from a hotter deep atmosphere tend to evolve faster toward the same final state. We also find that the deep adiabat is stable against low-levels of deep heating and cooling, as long as the Newtonian cooling time-scale is longer than $sim 3000$ years at $200$ bar. Conclusions: We conclude that the steady-state vertical advection of potential temperature by deep atmospheric circulations constitutes a robust mechanism to explain hot Jupiter inflated radii. We suggest that future studies of hot Jupiters are evolved for a longer time than currently done, and, when possible, include models initialised with a hot deep adiabat. We stress that this mechanism stems from the advection of entropy by irradiation induced mass flows and does not require (finely tuned) dissipative process, in contrast with most previously suggested scenarios.
Extremely irradiated, close-in planets to early-type stars might be prone to strong atmospheric escape. We review the literature showing that X-ray-to-optical measurements indicate that for intermediate-mass stars (IMS) cooler than $approx$8250 K, the X-ray and EUV (XUV) fluxes are on average significantly higher than those of solar-like stars, while for hotter IMS, because of the lack of surface convection, it is the opposite. We construct spectral energy distributions for prototypical IMS, comparing them to solar. The XUV fluxes relevant for upper planet atmospheric heating are highest for the cooler IMS and lowest for the hotter IMS, while the UV fluxes increase with increasing stellar temperature. We quantify the influence of this characteristic of the stellar fluxes on the mass loss of close-in planets by simulating the atmospheres of planets orbiting EUV-bright (WASP-33) and EUV-faint (KELT-9) A-type stars. For KELT-9b, we find that atmospheric expansion caused by heating due to absorption of the stellar UV and optical light drives mass-loss rates of $approx$10$^{11}$ g s$^{-1}$, while heating caused by absorption of the stellar XUV radiation leads to mass-loss rates of $approx$10$^{10}$ g s$^{-1}$, thus underestimating mass loss. For WASP-33b, the high XUV stellar fluxes lead to mass-loss rates of $approx$10$^{11}$ g s$^{-1}$. Even higher mass-loss rates are possible for less massive planets orbiting EUV-bright IMS. We argue that it is the weak XUV stellar emission, combined with a relatively high planetary mass, which limit planetary mass-loss rates, to allow the prolonged existence of KELT-9-like systems.
The observed low densities of gas giant planets with a high equilibrium temperature can be simulated in models when a fraction of the surface radiation is deposited deeper in the interior. Meanwhile migration theories suggest that hot Jupiters formed further away from their host-star and migrated inward. We incorporate disk migration in simulations of the evolving interior of hot Jupiters to determine whether migration has a long lasting effect on the inflation of planets. We quantify the difference between the radius of a migrated planet and the radius of a planet that formed in situ as the radius discrepancy. We remain agnostic about the physical mechanism behind interior heating, but assume it scales with the received stellar flux by a certain fraction. We find that the change in irradiation received from the host-star while the planet is migrating can affect the inflation and final radius of the planet. Models with a high fraction of energy deposited in the interior ( > 5%) show a significant radius discrepancy when the deposit is at higher pressures than P=1 bar. For a smaller fraction of 1%, there is no radius discrepancy for any deposit depth. We show that a uniform heating mechanism can cause different rates of inflation, depending on the migration history. If the forthcoming observations on mean densities and atmospheres of gas giants give a better indication of a potential heating mechanism, this could help to constrain the prior migration of such planets.
Arguably, the best method for determining the effective temperature ($T_{mathrm{eff}}$) and surface gravity (log $g$) of a DA white dwarf is by fitting the Hydrogen Lyman and Balmer absorption features. However, as has been shown for white dwarfs with $T_{mathrm{eff}}$>50,000K, the calculated value from the Lyman and Balmer lines are discrepant, which worsens with increasing temperature. Many different solutions have been suggested, ranging from the input physics used to calculate the models, to interstellar reddening. We will focus on the former, and consider three variables. The first is the atomic data used, namely the number of transitions included in line blanketing treatments and the photoionization cross sections. The second is the stark broadening treatment used to synthesise the Lyman and Balmer line profiles, namely the calculations performed by Lemke (1997) and Tremblay & Bergeron (2009). Finally, the third is the atmospheric content. The model grids are calculated with a pure H composition, and a metal polluted composition using the abundances of Preval et al. (2013). We present the preliminary results of our analysis, whereby we have determined the $T_{mathrm{eff}}$ for a small selection of white dwarfs. We plan to extend our analysis by allowing metallicity to vary in future model grids.
We use ground-based and space-based eclipse measurements for the near-infrared ($JHK!s$) bands and Spitzer 3.6 $mu$m and 4.5 $mu$m bands to construct colour-colour and colour-magnitude diagrams for hot Jupiters. We compare the results with previous observations of substellar objects and find that hot Jupiters, when corrected for their inflated radii, lie near the black body line and in the same region of the colour magnitude diagrams as brown dwarfs, including low gravity dwarfs that have been previously suggested as exoplanet analogs. We use theoretical emission spectra to investigate the effects of different metallicity, C/O ratios and temperatures on the IR colours. In general we find that while differences in C/O ratio and metallicity do correspond to different locations on these diagrams, the measurement errors are too large to use this method to put strong constraints on the composition of individual objects. However, as a class hot Jupiters cluster around the location expected for solar metallicity and C/O ratio.