OHMIC HEATING SUSPENDS, NOT REVERSES, THE COOLING CONTRACTION OF HOT JUPITERS
Open accessAbstract
We study the radius evolution of close-in extra-solar Jupiters under Ohmic heating, a mechanism that was recently proposed to explain the large observed sizes of many of these planets. Planets are born with high entropy and they subsequently cool and contract. We focus on two cases: first, that Ohmic heating commences when the planet is hot (high entropy); and second, that it commences after the planet has cooled. In the former case, we use analytical scaling and numerical experiments to confirm that Ohmic heating is capable of suspending the cooling as long as a few percent of the stellar irradiation is converted into Ohmic heating and the planet has a surface wind that extends to pressures of ∼10 bar or deeper. For these parameters, the radii at which cooling is stalled are consistent with (or larger than) the observed radii of most planets. The only two exceptions are WASP-17b and HAT-P-32b. In contrast to the high entropy case, we show that Ohmic heating cannot significantly re-inflate planets after they have already cooled. This leads us to suggest that the diversity of radii observed in hot Jupiters may be partially explained by the different epochs at which they are migrated to their current locations.
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Disk migration naturally delivers the hot Jupiter close to its star before it cools on a ~10 Myr timescale.
“Disk migration-which by definition occurs early in the planet's lifetimenaturally delivers the hot Jupiter close to its star before it cools on a ∼ 10 Myr timescale (e.g., Spiegel & Burrows 2012, Wu & Lithwick 2013).”
From Origins of Hot Jupiters (2018) · cites this paper as Wu & Lithwick 2013
Section 2.3 (page not provided) says the example planet TrES-4b would cool to its measured radius in less than 10 Myr if it evolved in isolation. But the paper does not establish that disk migration delivers hot Jupiters before they cool; Section 3 discusses migration that can bring them close to their stars after substantial contraction, from a few million to a few billion years after formation. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredHeating mechanisms that decay with depth, such as ohmic dissipation, have extremely long re-inflation timescales and are unable to re-inflate a Jupiter within the star's lifetime if it cools before arrival.
“An important caveat is that heating mechanisms that decay with depth, such as the commonly invoked stellar irradiation deposition mechanism of ohmic dissipation (e.g., Batygin & Stevenson 2010), have extremely long re-inflation timescales and are unable to re-inflate a Jupiter within the star's lifetime if it cools before arrival (e.g., Ginzburg & Sari 2016; see also Wu & Lithwick 2013”
From Origins of Hot Jupiters (2018) · cites this paper as Wu & Lithwick 2013
Section 3 reports that Ohmic heating is shallow and can re-inflate an already cooled planet by at most about 10%; its WASP-17b-like model is mildly re-inflated after 5 Gyr. This supports the difficulty of substantial re-inflation after cooling, but the paper does not establish a stellar-lifetime limit or the same result for heating mechanisms generally. The claim's absolute wording also overlooks the mild re-inflation the paper reports. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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Sorted by citations
Dawson, R. I., & Johnson, J. A. (2018) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081817-051853 · Cited by 622 · see citing works
- Authors
- Wu, Y., & Lithwick, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Northwestern University (US)
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2012-12-27
- Volume
- 763
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 13
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2087667589
- Cited by
- 78
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 3.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Astrophysical Journal (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1109776)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Keywords
- Joule heating, hot Jupiters, radius inflation, planetary cooling, atmospheric circulation, surface winds, stellar irradiation, WASP-17b, planet migration, exoplanet radii
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