Hot Jupiters: Origins, Structure, Atmospheres

TL;DR

This review covers the formation, interior structure, and atmospheric properties of hot Jupiters, highlighting current understanding, observational signatures, and future research directions in planetary physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of hot Jupiter physics, integrating formation pathways, interior models, and atmospheric dynamics with recent observational and modeling insights.

Findings

Multiple formation pathways are necessary to explain hot Jupiter populations.

Models account for inflated radii through specific interior and atmospheric processes.

Atmospheric composition and circulation are key to understanding observational signatures.

Abstract

We provide a brief review of many aspects of the planetary physics of hot Jupiters. Our aim is to cover most of the major areas of current study while providing the reader with additional references for more detailed follow-up. We first discuss giant planet formation and subsequent orbital evolution via disk-driven torques or dynamical interactions. More than one formation pathway is needed to understand the population. Next, we examine our current understanding of the evolutionary history and current interior structure of the planets, where we focus on bulk composition as well as viable models to explain the inflated radii of the population. Finally we discuss aspects of their atmospheres in the context of observations and 1D and 3D models, including atmospheric structure and escape, spectroscopic signatures, and complex atmospheric circulation. The major opacity sources in these atmospheres, including alkali metals, water vapor, and others, are discussed. We discuss physics that control the 3D atmospheric circulation and day-to-night temperature structures. We conclude by suggesting important future work for still-open questions.