Planetary Science Seminar

Abstract: Hot Jupiters constitute one of the many surprises of Exoplanet searches. Their tight, few-day orbits make them a challenge for commonly invoked planet formation scenarios and correspond to the onset of strong tidal dissipation.

Hot Jupiters could have migrated inward in a disk, or they could have formed via tidal circularization of an orbit made highly eccentric following gravitational interactions with a companion. I will show how current observations coupled with a detailed treatment of tides can be used to constrain both hot Jupiter formation and tidal dissipation theories. 

Eventually, stellar tides will cause the orbits of many gas giants to decay down to their Roche limit. I will show how a hot Jupiter undergoing a phase of Roche-lobe overflow can lead to a hot super-Earth- or sub-Neptune-size planet. If correct, these results suggest that many Jovian planets have rocky cores that can now be studied directly.