Escaping Helium and a Highly Muted Spectrum Suggest a Metal-Enriched Atmosphere on Sub-Neptune GJ3090b from JWST Transit Spectroscopy
(2025)
Limited Hysteresis in the Atmospheric Dynamics of Hot Jupiters
The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 983:1 (2025) 7
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, a coherent picture has emerged of the atmospheric dynamics of hot Jupiters from a combination of three-dimensional general circulation models and astronomical observations. This paradigm consists of hot Jupiters being spin-synchronized due to their close-in orbit, with a resulting large day-to-night irradiation gradient driving a day-to-night temperature contrast. This day-to-night temperature contrast in turn raises day-to-night pressure gradients that are balanced by a circulation with wind speeds on the order of km s−1. The dominant feature of this circulation is a super-rotating equatorial jet, maintained by eddy-mean flow interactions that pump momentum into the jet. In this work, I explore the dependence of this circulation paradigm on the initial thermal and dynamical conditions in atmospheric circulation models of hot Jupiters. To do so, I conduct MITgcm simulations of the atmospheric circulation of hot Jupiters with both varying initial wind directions and initial temperature profiles. I find that the results are insensitive to the initial conditions, implying that the current paradigm of hot-Jupiter circulation exhibits at most limited hysteresis. I demonstrate that there is a single characteristic wind speed of hot Jupiters for given planetary and atmospheric parameters using an idealized scaling theory, and discuss implications for the interpretation of hot Jupiter observations.The climates and thermal emission spectra of prime nearby temperate rocky exoplanet targets
(2025)
Thermal Phase Curves in Hot Gas Giant Exoplanets Exhibit a Complex Dependence on Planetary Properties
The Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 982:2 (2025) 159
Testing the standard model of hot Jupiter atmospheric circulation
Copernicus Publications (2025)