A Possible Bifurcation in Atmospheres of Strongly Irradiated Stars and Planets

2003/05/20 by I. Hubený, I. Hubeny, A. Burrows +2 · 13 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Atmospheric Ozone and Climate #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/377080

published as Astrophys.J. 594 (2003) 1011-1018 · 22 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ

arxiv created 2003/05/20 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

We show that under certain circumstances the differences between the absorption mean and Planck mean opacities can lead to multiple solutions for an LTE atmospheric structure. Since the absorption and Planck mean opacities are not expected to differ significantly in the usual case of radiative equilibrium, nonirradiated atmospheres, the most interesting situations in which the effect may play a role are strongly irradiated stars and planets, and also possibly structures in which there is a significant deposition of mechanical energy, such as stellar chromospheres and accretion disks. We have presented an illustrative example of a strongly irradiated giant planet in which the bifurcation effect is predicted to occur for a certain range of distances from the star.

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