Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (Aug 2024)

A fresh look into the interaction of exoplanets magnetosphere with stellar winds using MHD simulations

  • Fatemeh Bagheri,
  • Fatemeh Bagheri,
  • Ramon Lopez,
  • Kevin Pham

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2024.1398379
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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Numerous numerical studies have been carried out in recent years that simulate different aspects of exoplanets’ magnetosphere and stellar winds. These studies have focused primarily on hot Jupiters with sun-like stars. This study addresses the challenges inherent in utilizing existing MHD codes to model hot Jupiter-star systems. Due to the scaling of the system and the assumption of a uniformly flowing stellar wind at the outer boundary of the simulation, MHD codes necessitate a minimum distance of greater than 0.4 au for a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a sun-like star to avoid substantial violations of the code’s assumptions. Additionally, employing the GAMERA (Grid Agnostic MHD for Extended Research Applications) MHD code, we simulate star-planet interactions considering various stellar types (Sun-like and M Dwarf stars) with both Jupiter-like and rocky planets positioned at varying orbital distances. Furthermore, we explore the impact of tidal locking on the total power within the magnetosphere-ionosphere systems.

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