Atmospheric Dynamics of Hot Exoplanets

By K. Heng, A. Showman. 2014

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the past decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods, and even wind speeds to be measured. Atmospheric dynamics sets the background state of density, temperature, and velocity that determines or influences the spectral and temporal appearance of an exoplanetary atmosphere. Hot exoplanets are most amenable to these characterization techniques. In this review, we focus on highly irradiated, large exoplanets (the hot Jupiters), as astronomical data begin to confront theoretical questions. We summarize the basic atmospheric quantities inferred from the astronomical observations. We review the state of the art by addressing a series of current questions, and look toward the future by considering a separate set of exploratory questions. Attaining the next level of understanding requires a concerted effort of constructing multifaceted, multiwavelength datasets for benchmark objects. Understanding clouds presents a formidable obstacle, as they introduce degeneracies into the interpretation of spectra, yet their properties and existence are directly influenced by atmospheric dynamics. Confronting general circulation models with these multifaceted, multiwavelength datasets will help us understand these and other degeneracies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f13899e2c21e7933634b79699cb54ecacac86d5c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Line
2. Jon Fortney
3. J. Lustig-Yaeger
4. T. Greene
5. K. Heng
6. C. Montero
7. Kyle L. Luther
8. Luc Grosheintz

Citations in the corpus

• VULCAN: An Open-source, Validated Chemical Kinetics Python Code for Exoplanetary Atmospheres (2016, background): “Unlike for the Earth and Solar System bodies, the bulk of the focus is on currently observable exoplanetary atmospheres, which fall into the temperature range of 500 to 2500 K (for reviews, seeSeager & Deming 2010; Madhusudhan et al. 2014; Heng & Showman 2015).”
• CHARACTERIZING TRANSITING EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES WITH JWST (2015, background): “…atmospheres of a diversity of planets is critical to understanding their bulk compositions, formation (and any migration), energy balance, and atmospheric processes (e.g., see Crossfield 2015; Madhusudhan et al. 2014; Burrows & Orton 2010; Heng & Showman 2015; Seager & Deming 2010; Burrows 2014).”