Tidal Processes in Planetary and Stellar Systems

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Tides are experienced daily here on Earth, they also occur widely in the celestial realm. Here, I propose to study two of their manifestations.******Hot Jupiters. the first-known population of extra-solar planets, orbit their stars at implausibly close ranges. They are often suggested to be the products of dynamical migration: formed much further away than their current locations, angular momentum exchange with their neighbours (either stellar or planetary ones) may gradually squeeze their original round orbits into very narrow ellipses; strong tides are raised on these planets as they sway by their stars periodically. If the tidal sloshing can be dissipated into heat, the planet orbit will decay and a hot Jupiter is born. Such a theory of dynamical migration, while neatly explaining many of the observed features of hot Jupiters, contains a number of major weaknesses -- all related to our lack of understandings on the tidal process. So in order to firmly establish the origin of hot Jupiters, I propose to study the tidal process in detail. At the end of such a study, we should be able to explain the current orbits and sizes of these planets. It will be satisfying to finally understand this class of exotic objects that nature produces.******Another very extreme tidal process occurs when a small planet passes very close from the surface of a massive body (a planet or a star). The former body can be shredded into millions of little debris, with some of them escaping the gravitational pull of the destroyer and eventually re-conglomerating into larger clumps. Such a catastrophic event, we propose, may be responsible for producing the many bright dusty disks we see around stars, the so-called debris disks. This breaks away from the conventional picture of debris disk formation, where it is hypothesized that quantities of planetesimals, unable to be incorporated into planets at early days, remain behind and gradually grind down to dust over billions of years. I propose to study the details of the tidal disruption event, in order to predict the frequency and the appearance of debris disks this can give rise to. Such a work also have applications for the Kuiper belt objects in our own solar system.