Vidal, J orcid.org/0000-0002-3654-6633 and Barker, AJ orcid.org/0000-0003-4397-7332 (2020) Turbulent viscosity acting on the equilibrium tidal flow in convective stars. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 888 (2). L31. ISSN 2041-8205
Abstract
Convection is thought to act as a turbulent viscosity in damping tidal flows and in driving spin and orbital evolution in close convective binary systems. This turbulent viscosity should be reduced, compared to mixing-length predictions, when the forcing (tidal) frequency $| {\omega }_{t}| $ exceeds the turnover frequency ω cv of the dominant convective eddies. However, two contradictory scaling laws have been proposed and this issue remains highly disputed. To revisit this controversy, we conduct the first direct numerical simulations of convection interacting with the equilibrium tidal flow in an idealized global model of a low-mass star. We present direct computations of the turbulent effective viscosity, ν E , acting on the equilibrium tidal flow. We unexpectedly report the coexistence of the two disputed scaling laws, which reconciles previous theoretical (and numerical) findings. We recover the universal quadratic scaling ${\nu }_{E}\propto {(| {\omega }_{t}| /{\omega }_{{cv}})}^{-2}$ in the high-frequency regime $| {\omega }_{t}| /{\omega }_{{cv}}\gg 1$. Our results also support the linear scaling ${\nu }_{E}\propto {(| {\omega }_{t}| /{\omega }_{{cv}})}^{-1}$ in an intermediate regime with $1\leqslant | {\omega }_{t}| /{\omega }_{{cv}}\lesssim { \mathcal O }(10)$. Both regimes may be relevant to explain the observed properties of close binaries, including spin synchronization of solar-type stars and the circularization of low-mass stars. The robustness of these two regimes of tidal dissipation, and the transition between them, should be explored further in more realistic models. A better understanding of the interaction between convection and tidal flows is indeed essential to correctly interpret observations of close binary stars and short-period planetary orbits.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Close binary stars ; Stellar convective zones ; Hydrodynamics ; Astrophysical fluid dynamics ; Planet hosting stars ; Stellar convection envelopes |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Applied Mathematics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/R00059X/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 13 Feb 2020 12:06 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jan 2021 14:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Astronomical Society |
Identification Number: | 10.3847/2041-8213/ab6219 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156990 |