September 9
Using GCM to understand atmospheric dynamics of lava planets
Speaker: Alex McGinty, Oxford
Abstract: Over the last few years, missions like Kepler and later TESS have discovered many rocky planets that orbit their host stars in less than a day. These ultra-short-period planets (USPs) are expected to be stripped of their volatile atmospheres by intense host star irradiation, which is corroborated by their bulk densities and eclipse observations, consistent with bare rock surfaces. With JWST we can study these lava planets with full phase curve observations to understand the presence of an atmosphere and how well they can redistribute heat from the dayside to the night side. In my talk I will discuss efforts to model these lava planets with 3D GCM simulations to fully capture the atmosphere dynamics. I apply this model to TOI-561b, which has been shown to have a thick volatile atmosphere and K2-141b.
Host: Megan Weiner Mansfield