Hot Jupiters: Astrophysical Laboratories for Extreme Weather

Hot Jupiters, a class of exoplanets orbiting in the proximity of their parent stars, are subjected to a strong irradiating flux that governs their radiative and dynamical properties.  It is a regime which is not observed in the giant planets of our solar system.  In this talk, I will describe current efforts to understand their radiative and dynamical properties, characterize their atmospheres by means of a variety of techniques, study the interaction of their fast, weakly ionized winds with the planetary magnetic field, and shed light on an evolutionary puzzle known as the problem of inflated radii.

http://amalfi.colorado.edu/~rosalba/