http://arxiv.org/abs/2009.05525
Ultra-hot disintegrating exoplanets have been detected with tails trailing behind and/or shooting ahead of them. These tails are believed to be made of dusts that are carried upward by the supersonic flow escaping the planet’s gravity field from the fiercely heated permanent day-side. Conserving angular momentum, this day-side escape flux would lead the planet in orbit, leaving puzzles in the trailing tails in observation. We here develop a theoretical model to understand the asymmetry of the mineral escape flow between the day-side and night-side. We demonstrate that escape flux from the night-side could dominate that from the day-side, and the former may naturally explains the commonly-observed trailing tails based on angular momentum conservation, without the need to invoke radiation pressure, which has previously been thought to be the key. We also find analytical approximations for both dayside and nightside escape fluxes, which may be applied to study planetary evolution of disintegrating planets and to infer planetary sizes from observations of the properties of their dusty tails.
W. Kang, F. Ding, R. Wordsworth, et. al.
Mon, 14 Sep 20
-1575/54
Comments: N/A
You must be logged in to post a comment.