The rotation of planets hosting atmospheric tides: from Venus to habitable super-earths

Abstract

The competition between the torques induced by solid and thermal tides drives the rotational dynamics of Venus-like planets and super-Earths orbiting in the habitable zone of low-mass stars. The tidal responses of the atmosphere and telluric core are related to their respective physical properties and strongly depend on the tidal frequency. The resulting torque determines the possible equilibrium states of the planet's spin. We compute here an analytic expression for the total tidal torque exerted on a Venus-like planet. This expression is used to characterize the equilibrium rotation of the body. Close to the star, the solid tide dominates. Far from it, the thermal tide drives the rotational dynamics of the planet. The transition regime corresponds to the habitable zone, where prograde and retrograde equilibrium states appear. We demonstrate the strong impact of the atmospheric properties and of the rheology of the solid part on the rotational dynamics of Venus-like planets, highlighting the key role played by dissipative mechanisms in the stability of equilibrium configurations.

5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (6)

• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: Dependence on Planetary Mass
• Asynchronous rotation of Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars
• Deformation and tidal evolution of close-in planets and satellites using a Maxwell viscoelastic rheology
• On the equilibrium rotation of Earth-like extra-solar planets
• Atmospheric tides in Earth-like planets
• Spin evolution of Earth-sized exoplanets, including atmospheric tides and core-mantle friction

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Modelling climate diversity, tidal dynamics and the fate of volatiles on TRAPPIST-1 planets
• A review of possible planetary atmospheres in the TRAPPIST-1 system
• Obliquity Constraints on an Extrasolar Planetary-Mass Companion
• Super-Earths and Earth-like Exoplanets
• Solid tidal friction in multi-layer planets: Application to Earth, Venus, a Super Earth and the TRAPPIST-1 planets. Can a multi-layer planet be approximated as a homogeneous planet?
• Unbiasing the density of TTV-characterised sub-Neptunes: Update of the mass-radius relationship of 34 Kepler planets
• Oceanic tides from Earth-like to ocean planets
• Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt
• Final spin states of eccentric ocean planets
• Atmospheric Dynamics of a Near Tidally Locked Earth-Size Planet
• Collision Chains among the Terrestrial Planets. II. An Asymmetry between Earth and Venus
• Semidiurnal thermal tides in asynchronously rotating hot Jupiters
• A generic frequency dependence for the atmospheric tidal torque of terrestrial planets
• Spin evolution of Venus-like planets subjected to gravitational and thermal tides
• Overstable Convective Modes of Rotating Hot Jupiters
• Consequences of dynamically unstable moons in extrasolar systems
• Tidal evolution of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars
• Atmospheric thermal tides and planetary spin I. The complex interplay between stratification and rotation
• On the behaviour of spin-orbit connection of exoplanets
• Tidal locking and the gravitational fold catastrophe
• Exoplanets synchronization in the habitable zone: Learning from Venus' retrograde rotation