Advection of potential temperature in the atmosphere of irradiated exoplanets: a robust mechanism to explain radius inflation

Abstract

The anomalously large radii of strongly irradiated exoplanets have remained a major puzzle in astronomy. Based on a 2D steady state atmospheric circulation model, the validity of which is assessed by comparison to 3D calculations, we reveal a new mechanism, namely the advection of the potential temperature due to mass and longitudinal momentum conservation, a process occuring in the Earth's atmosphere or oceans. At depth, the vanishing heating flux forces the atmospheric structure to converge to a hotter adiabat than the one obtained with 1D calculations, implying a larger radius for the planet. Not only do the calculations reproduce the observed radius of HD209458b, but also the observed correlation between radius inflation and irradiation for transiting planets. Vertical advection of potential temperature induced by non uniform atmospheric heating thus provides a robust mechanism explaining the inflated radii of irradiated hot Jupiters.

accepted in ApJ

References in corpus (8)

• The Mass of KOI-94d and a Relation for Planet Radius, Mass, and Incident Flux
• Fingering convection and cloudless models for cool brown dwarf atmospheres
• Heat transport in giant (exo)planets: a new perspective
• The Effects of Consistent Chemical Kinetics Calculations on the Pressure-Temperature Profiles and Emission Spectra of Hot Jupiters
• Treatment of overlapping gaseous absorption with the correlated-k method in hot Jupiter and brown dwarf atmosphere models
• Magnetic Effects in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres
• The UK Met Office GCM with a sophisticated radiation scheme applied to the hot Jupiter HD 209458b
• Revisiting the correlation between stellar activity and planetary surface gravity

Cited by in corpus (87)

• Origins of Hot Jupiters
• A new set of atmosphere and evolution models for cool T-Y brown dwarfs and giant exoplanets
• Bayesian Analysis of Hot Jupiter Radius Anomalies: Evidence for Ohmic Dissipation?
• An absolute sodium abundance for a cloud-free 'hot Saturn' exoplanet
• The Intrinsic Temperature and Radiative-Convective Boundary Depth in the Atmospheres of Hot Jupiters
• The cloudy shape of hot Jupiter thermal phase curves
• The Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program for JWST
• Atmospheric Dynamics of Hot Giant Planets and Brown Dwarfs
• Hot Jupiters: Origins, Structure, Atmospheres
• Formation of Silicate and Titanium Clouds on Hot Jupiters
• Simulating the cloudy atmospheres of HD 209458 b and HD 189733 b with the 3D Met Office Unified Model
• Atmospheric Regimes and Trends on Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
• Implications of three-dimensional chemical transport in hot Jupiter atmospheres: results from a consistently coupled chemistry-radiation-hydrodynamics model
• A warm Neptune's methane reveals core mass and vigorous atmospheric mixing
• An emission spectrum for WASP-121b measured across the 0.8-1.1 micron wavelength range using the Hubble Space Telescope
• Seeing double with K2: Testing re-inflation with two remarkably similar planets around red giant branch stars
• Equatorial anti-rotating day side wind flow in WASP-43b elicited by deep wind jets?
• Evidence of Three Mechanisms Explaining the Radius Anomaly of Hot Jupiters
• The Effect of 3D Transport-Induced Disequilibrium Carbon Chemistry on the Atmospheric Structure and Phase Curves and Emission Spectra of Hot Jupiter HD 189733b
• Investigating hot-Jupiter inflated radii with hierarchical Bayesian modelling
• Idealised simulations of the deep atmosphere of hot jupiters: Deep, hot, adiabats as a robust solution to the radius inflation problem
• Results from a set of three-dimensional numerical experiments of a hot Jupiter atmosphere
• Evidence for Atmospheric Cold-trap Processes in the Noninverted Emission Spectrum of Kepler-13Ab Using HST/WFC3
• Confirmation of water emission in the dayside spectrum of the ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b
• The 3D thermal, dynamical and chemical structure of the atmosphere of HD 189733b: implications of wind-driven chemistry for the emission phase curve
• The effect of metallicity on the atmospheres of exoplanets with fully coupled 3D hydrodynamics, equilibrium chemistry, and radiative transfer
• Exonephology: Transmission spectra from a 3D simulated cloudy atmosphere of HD209458b
• A Library of Self-Consistent Simulated Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Structure and Evolution of Internally Heated Hot Jupiters
• Cloudless atmospheres for young low-gravity substellar objects
• Observability of signatures of transport-induced chemistry in clear atmospheres of hot gas giant exoplanets
• Grid of Pseudo-2D Chemistry Models for Tidally-Locked Exoplanets. I. The Role of Vertical and Horizontal Mixing
• WASP-127b transmission spectrum]{Abundance measurements of H${}_2$O and carbon-bearing species in the atmosphere of WASP-127b confirm its super-solar metallicity
• The Limits of the Primitive Equations of Dynamics for Warm, Slowly Rotating Small Neptunes and Super Earths
• Overcast on Osiris: 3D radiative-hydrodynamical simulations of a cloudy hot Jupiter using the parameterised, phase-equilibrium cloud formation code EddySed
• Chemical variation with altitude and longitude on exo-Neptunes: Predictions for Ariel phase-curve observations
• Evidence for disequilibrium chemistry from vertical mixing in hot Jupiter atmospheres. A comprehensive survey of transiting close-in gas giant exoplanets with warm-Spitzer/IRAC
• TESS observations of the WASP-121 b phase curve
• Slow Cooling and Fast Reinflation for Hot Jupiters
• Fully scalable forward model grid of exoplanet transmission spectra
• An independent analysis of the Spitzer/IRAC phase curves of WASP43 b
• The Impact of Mixing Treatments on Cloud Modelling in 3D Simulations of Hot Jupiters
• Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-79b from 0.6 to 5.0 $\mu$m
• Pseudo-2D Modelling of Heat Redistribution Through H${}_2$ Thermal Dissociation/Recombination: Consequences for Ultra-Hot Jupiters
• Re-inflation of warm and hot Jupiters
• The mass-radius relation of intermediate-mass planets outlined by hydrodynamic escape and thermal evolution
• Implications of different stellar spectra for the climate of tidally-locked Earth-like exoplanets
• Ohmic Dissipation in Mini-Neptunes
• HCN production in Titan's Atmosphere: Coupling quantum chemistry and disequilibrium atmospheric modeling
• K2-114b and K2-115b: Two Transiting Warm Jupiters
• Three new brown dwarfs and a massive hot Jupiter revealed by TESS around early-type stars
• Hot Jupiter accretion: 3D MHD simulations of star-planet wind interaction
• The Hubble PanCET Program: A Metal-rich Atmosphere for the Inflated Hot Jupiter HAT-P-41b
• GASTLI: An open-source coupled interior-atmosphere model to unveil gas giant composition
• No evidence for radius inflation in hot Jupiters from vertical advection of heat
• The Acceleration of Superrotation in Simulated Hot Jupiter Atmospheres
• The effect of interior heat flux on the atmospheric circulation of hot and ultra-hot Jupiters
• Ariel Planetary Interiors White Paper
• The THOR+HELIOS general circulation model: multi-wavelength radiative transfer with accurate scattering by clouds/hazes
• Shallowness of circulation in hot Jupiters -- Advancing the Ohmic dissipation model
• WASP-121b's transmission spectrum observed with JWST/NIRSpec G395H reveals thermal dissociation and SiO in the atmosphere
• Exoplanet phase curves at large phase angles. Diagnostics for extended hazy atmospheres
• Exploring deep and hot adiabats as a potential solution to the radius inflation problem in brown dwarfs: Long-timescale models of the deep atmospheres of KELT-1b, Kepler-13Ab, and SDSS1411B
• Coupled Day-Night Models of Exoplanetary Atmospheres
• Thermal Phase Curves of XO-3b: an Eccentric Hot Jupiter at the Deuterium Burning Limit
• Inflation of Migrated Hot Jupiters
• Evidence of Radius Inflation in Radiative GCM Models of WASP-76b due to the Advection of Potential Temperature
• TOI-1296b and TOI-1298b observed with TESS and SOPHIE: Two hot Saturn-mass exoplanets with different densities around metal-rich stars
• Greening of the Brown Dwarf Desert. EPIC 212036875 b -- a 51 M${}_{\mathrm{J}}$ object in a 5 day orbit around an F7 V star
• Refractory and Volatile Species in the UV-to-IR Transmission Spectrum of Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-178b with HST and JWST
• Breaking degeneracies in exoplanetary parameters through self-consistent atmosphere-interior modelling
• The Hubble PanCET program: The near-ultraviolet transmission spectrum of WASP-79b
• Predicting exoplanet mass from radius and incident flux: A Bayesian mixture model
• Examining NHD vs QHD in the GCM THOR with non-grey radiative transfer for the hot Jupiter regime
• Inflated hot Jupiters: Inferring average atmospheric velocity via Ohmic models coupled with internal dynamo evolution
• Retrieving interior properties of hot Jupiters with Love numbers and atmospheric measurements
• BD-14 3065b (TOI-4987b): from giant planet to brown dwarf: evidence for deuterium burning in old age?
• Spitzer phase curve observations and circulation models of the inflated ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76b
• Near-infrared spectra of the inflated post-common envelope brown dwarf NLTT 5306B
• Flows, Circulations, and Energy Transport in the Outer and Deep Atmospheres of Synchronous and Non-synchronous Hot Jupiters
• Global Chemistry and Thermal Structure Models for the Hot Jupiter WASP-43b and Predictions for JWST
• On the Utility of Transmission Color Analysis I: Differentiating Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes
• Effects of the internal temperature on vertical mixing and on cloud structures in Ultra Hot Jupiters
• Patchy nightside clouds on ultra-hot Jupiters: General Circulation Model simulations with radiatively active cloud tracers
• Atmospheric Signatures of Common Envelope Evolution in White Dwarf Planets
• Angular Momentum and Heat Transport on Tidally Locked Hot Jupiter Planets
• A Cloudy Fit to the Atmosphere of WASP-107 b