Assume the present epoch has the same age as present-day Jupiter, the host now has solar luminosity, and moving inward did not change the stipulated intrinsic cooling law or its normalization. This neglects persistent tidal heating and irradiation-induced suppression of cooling. The intrinsic planetary luminosity is then approximately , not its value at the migration epoch.
Define incident irradiation as intercepted power before reflection,
Comparing with present-day Jupiter at gives
For equal radii,
Retaining unequal radii multiplies the right side by . If irradiation instead denotes incident radiative flux per area, the orbital factor is still , but it must be compared with an intrinsic flux consistently. Absorbed power also includes , so comparisons of absorbed irradiation require the two Bond albedos.
Close-in gas giants motivate planetary migration when compared with formation models. Two useful observational diagnostics are then orbital eccentricities and spin-orbit geometry. An eccentric population of wider potential progenitors together with circular short-period orbits supports eccentricity excitation followed by tidal dissipation. The second diagnostic is stellar obliquity, including misaligned or retrograde orbits measured through the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect; these can favour scattering or secular pathways over smooth coplanar migration. Conversely, aligned resonant architectures are compatible with disc-driven migration. None is unique: primordial disc tilt or alternative formation can mimic some signatures. The expected present-day ratio is suppressed by the inverse-square orbital factor, while eccentricities and spin-orbit geometry test migration pathways.
Stellar obliquity 2026-10-06
The stellar obliquity is the angle between a star's spin and a planet's orbital angular momentum. The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect constrains the angle between the sky projections of those two axes, rather than a component of . If the orbital and stellar-spin inclinations to the line of sight are and , then ; alone generally does not determine . Large misalignments constrain formation and planetary migration, but can also reflect a tilted birth disc.