Prospects of using simulations to study the photospheres of brown dwarfs

We discuss prospects of using multi-dimensional time-dependent simulations to study the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets, including the processes of convection, radiation, dust formation, and rotation. We argue that reasonably realistic simulations are feasible, however, separated into two classes of local and global models. Numerical challenges are related to potentially large dynamic ranges, and the treatment of scattering of radiation in multi-D geometries.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 239 "Convection in Astrophysics", eds. F. Kupka, I.W. Roxburgh, and K.L. Cha

Dust cloud lightning in extraterrestrial atmospheres

Lightning is present in all solar system planets which form clouds in their atmospheres. Cloud formation outside our solar system is possible in objects with much higher temperatures than on Earth or on Jupiter: Brown dwarfs and giant extrasolar gas planets form clouds made of mixed materials and a large spectrum of grain sizes. These clouds are globally neutral obeying dust-gas charge equilibrium which is, on short timescales, inconsistent with the observation of stochastic ionization events of the solar system planets. We argue that a significant volume of the clouds in brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets is susceptible to local discharge events and that the upper cloud layers are most suitable for powerful lightning-like discharge events. We discuss various sources of atmospheric ionisation, including thermal ionisation and a first estimate of ionisation by cosmic rays, and argue that we should expect thunderstorms also in the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and giant gas planets which contain mineral clouds.Comment: refereed conference paper accepted for publication in PSS Special Issue: Outer Planets VIII, 16 page

Expect the unexpected: non-equilibrium processes in brown dwarf atmospheres

Brown Dwarf atmosphere are a chemically extremely rich, one example being the formation of clouds driven by the phase-non-equilibrium of the atmospheric gas. Cloud formation modelling is an integral part of any atmosphere simulation used to interpret spectral observations of ultra-cool objects and to determine fundamental parameters like log(g) and Teff. This proceeding to the workshop 'GAIA and the Unseen: The Brown Dwarf Question' first summarizes what a model atmosphere simulation is, and then advocates two ideas: A) The use of a multitude of model families to determine fundamental parameters with realistic confidence interval. B) To keep an eye on the unexpected, like for example, ionisation signatures resulting plasma processesComment: 5 pages, proceeding to the workshop 'GAIA and the Unseen: The Brown Dwarf Question

Cloud formation in giant planets

We calculate the formation of dust clouds in atmospheres of giant gas-planets. The chemical structure and the evolution of the grain size distribution in the dust cloud layer is discussed based on a consistent treatment of seed formation, growth/evaporation and gravitational settling. Future developments are shortly addressed.Comment: 4 pages, Proceeding to "Extreme solar systems", eds. Fischer, Rasio, Thorsett, Wolszcza

Beyond Eikonal Scattering in M(atrix)-Theory

We study the problem of more general kinematics for the finite N M(atrix)-Model than the simple straight line motion that has been used before. This is supposed to be related to momentum transferring processes in the dual super-gravity description. We find a negative result for classical, perturbative processes and discuss briefly the possibility of instianton like quantum mechanical tunneling processes