Tidally-excited inertial waves in stars and planets: exploring the frequency-dependent and averaged dissipation with nonlinear simulations

TL;DR

This study uses nonlinear simulations to analyze inertial wave dissipation in stars and planets, revealing the robustness of frequency-averaged predictions and highlighting nonlinear effects that can cause significant deviations from linear theory.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed nonlinear simulation analysis of inertial wave dissipation, comparing results with linear theory and assessing the validity of frequency-averaged models.

Findings

Frequency-averaged predictions are robust across various parameters.

Nonlinear effects can cause orders-of-magnitude differences from linear theory.

Caution is needed when applying frequency-averaged formalism to real systems.

Abstract

We simulate the nonlinear hydrodynamical evolution of tidally-excited inertial waves in convective envelopes of rotating stars and giant planets modelled as spherical shells containing incompressible, viscous and adiabatically-stratified fluid. This model is relevant for studying tidal interactions between close-in planets and their stars, as well as close low-mass star binaries. We explore in detail the frequency-dependent tidal dissipation rates obtained from an extensive suite of numerical simulations, which we compare with linear theory, including with the widely-employed frequency-averaged formalism to represent inertial wave dissipation. We demonstrate that the frequency-averaged predictions appear to be quite robust and is approximately reproduced in our nonlinear simulations spanning the frequency range of inertial waves as we vary the convective envelope thickness, tidal amplitude, and Ekman number. Yet, we find nonlinear simulations can produce significant differences with linear theory for a given tidal frequency (potentially by orders of magnitude), largely due to tidal generation of differential rotation and its effects on the waves. Since the dissipation in a given system can be very different both in linear and nonlinear simulations, the frequency-averaged formalism should be used with caution. Despite its robustness, it is also unclear how accurately it represents tidal evolution in real (frequency-dependent) systems.