Dayside-Nightside Temperature Differences in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres

Abstract:

The full-phase light curves of individual close-in extrasolar giant planets, or "hot Jupiters," show a trend of increasing fractional amplitude with increasing planetary equilibrium temperature. The attached figure shows this trend for 7 transiting low-eccentricity hot Jupiters. For these planets, this trend can be realized as a trend of increasing dayside-to-nightside temperature difference with increasing equilibrium temperature, as these planets are expected to be tidally locked. Here we examine this trend, in order to shed insight on the physical processes that regulate heat redistribution in tidally-locked planet atmospheres. We utilize a combination of analytic theory to predict how heat is redistributed from day to night over a range of equilibrium temperature, atmospheric composition, and potential frictional drag strengths, and confirm the theory using numerical circulation modeling. Our theory identifies that the transition from low to high day-night temperature differences is mediated by wave adjustment, the same process that regulates heat redistribution in the tropics of Earth. Due to their low rotation rate and hence large Rossby deformation radius, tidally locked planets allow for wave propagation to occur over a much larger latitude range than on Earth. Hence, wave adjustment processes play a key role in the the global, not just equatorial, heat redistribution in hot Jupiter atmospheres. Wave propagation can be damped in hot Jupiter atmospheres by either radiative cooling to space or potential frictional drag. This frictional drag, if present, would likely be caused by Lorentz forces in a partially ionized atmosphere threaded by a planetary-scale magnetic field. The radiative cooling timescale is inversely related to the cube of temperature, and any Lorentz drag would increase with temperature due to the increasing ionization fraction of the atmosphere. Hence, both of these processes damp waves more effectively as equilibrium temperature increases. We find in both our analytic theory and numerical simulations that radiative cooling plays the largest role in mediating day-night temperature differences. As a result, day-night temperature differences in hot Jupiter atmospheres decrease with increasing pressure and increase with increasing stellar irradiation.