Exoplanetary radio emission under different stellar wind conditions

Abstract

Radio emission from extrasolar giant planets in close orbits around their host star is an active field of research, including both observational efforts and theoretical work aiming at reasonable predictions for different target planets. So far, most theoretical work assumed a distance-independent, constant stellar wind velocity. This approach is improved and expanded in two respects: first, from stellar wind models, it is known that at close distances the stellar wind is still slow and has not yet reached the velocity it has at larger distances. For this reason, less energy is available for the generation of planetary radio emission than predicted by simplified models. This correspondingly reduces the intensity of stellar wind-driven planetary radio emission, which is calculated taking into account the stellar age. Second, it can be shown that under certain conditions the steady stellar wind has to be replaced by stellar coronal mass ejections. In those cases, the planetary radio flux is strongly increased. The different flux levels expected for planets subject to different stellar wind conditions are analyzed and compared. In addition, different uncertainties in this radio flux estimation are calculated and discussed.