Santiago Benavides, Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Postdoctoral Fellow, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Turbulence in the semiconducting regions of gas giant planets

Gas giant planet atmospheres span a large range of temperatures and pressures, resulting in effectively two dynamically distinct regions: the electrically neutral outer atmosphere, where we can directly observe intricate and puzzling flow patterns, and the electrically conducting interior, where the generation of that planet's magnetic field occurs via the dynamo. Historically, studies of gas giant atmospheres tend to focus individually on each distinct region. However, the two regions interact via the so-called 'semiconducting' region, which lies between the fully ionized and electrically-neutral regions, and acts as a boundary between the two. The 'semiconducting' regions of gas giant planets have three distinct properties that make the dynamical nature of their flows unique. They are (i) partially-ionized, (ii) subject to rotation and a strong background magnetic field, and (iii) poor electrical conductors. In this talk, I will briefly explore the impact that each of these properties has on localized turbulent flow, and consider the implications for realistic atmospheres. In particular, I focus on how the energy cascade is affected by each property, and whether or not new forms of effective energy dissipation can be used to model the effect of these properties on the atmospheres of planets like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as exoplanets.