Understanding tidal dissipation in gaseous giant planets from their core to their surface

Abstract

Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. Tidal dissipation in planets is intrinsically related to their internal structure. In particular, fluid and solid layers behave differently under tidal forcing. Therefore, their respective dissipation reservoirs have to be compared. In this work, we compute separately the contributions of the potential dense rocky/icy core and of the convective fluid envelope of gaseous giant planets, as a function of core size and mass. We demonstrate that in general both mechanisms must be taken into account.

2 pages, 2 figures, CoRoT Symposium 3 / Kepler KASC-7 joint meeting, Toulouse, July 2014; To be published by EPJ Web of Conferences