"Are exoplanets really tidally synchronized?"

With the increasing number of terrestrial exoplanets found in or near the habitable zone of their star, the number of studies aiming at understanding their surface and atmospheric properties has flourished. However, the vast majority of these studies rely on the extreme, although seemingly well established assumption that gravitational tides have spun down the planet to a state of synchronous rotation. We know that Venus has escaped this resonance because of the torque exerted by the Sun on the planet's atmosphere (the thermal tide), but it is usualy believed that this peculiarity is due to the extremely massive Venusian atmosphere. Is that really true? Thanks to a 3D atmospheric model I'll show that the torque exerted by a star on a planet just like the Earth can be strong enough to significantly drive the planet away from spin orbit resonance.