Jupiter Evolutionary Models Incorporating Stably Stratified Regions

TL;DR

This paper develops evolutionary models of Jupiter with stably stratified regions and fuzzy cores, integrating new data and physics to match observed parameters and inform future detailed planetary models.

Contribution

It introduces the exttt{APPLE} code for non-adiabatic Jupiter evolution, incorporating complex interior physics and matching observational constraints.

Findings

Models successfully fit Jupiter's thermal and compositional data.

Fuzzy cores can survive convective mixing over planetary lifetime.

Stably stratified regions are consistent with extit{Juno} gravity data.

Abstract

We address the issue of which broad set of initial conditions for the planet Jupiter best matches the current presence of a ``fuzzy core" of heavy elements, while at the same time comporting with measured parameters such as its effective temperature, atmospheric helium abundance, radius, and atmospheric metallicity. Our focus is on the class of fuzzy cores that can survive convective mixing to the present day and on the unique challenges of an inhomogeneous Jupiter with stably-stratified regions now demanded by the \textit{Juno} gravity data. Hence, using the new code \texttt{APPLE}, we attempt to put a non-adiabatic Jupiter into an evolutionary context. This requires not only a mass density model, the major relevant byproduct of the \textit{Juno} data, but a thermal model that is subject to interior heat transport, a realistic atmospheric flux boundary, a helium rain algorithm, and the latest equation of state. The result is a good fit to most major thermal, compositional, and structural constraints that still preserve a fuzzy core and that should inform future more detailed models of the current Jupiter in the context of its evolution from birth.