MHD Simulations Preliminarily Predict The Habitability and Radio Emission of TRAPPIST-1e
As the closest Earth-like exoplanet within the habitable zone of the M-dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, TRAPPIST-1e exhibits a magnetic field topology that is dependent on space weather conditions.
Variations in these conditions influence its habitability and contribute to its radio emissions. Our objective is to analyze the response of different terrestrial magnetosphere structures of TRAPPIST-1e to various space weather conditions, including events analogous to coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
We assess its habitability by computing the magnetopause standoff distance and predict the resulting radio emissions using scaling laws. This study provides some priors for future radio observations. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the TRAPPIST-1e system using the PLUTO code in spherical coordinates.
Our analysis indicates that the predicted habitability and radio emission of TRAPPIST-1e strongly depend on the planet’s magnetic field intensity and magnetic axis inclination.
Within sub-Alfvenic, super-Alfvenic, and transitional stellar wind regimes, the radio emission intensity positively correlates with both planetary magnetic field strength and axial tilt, while planetary habitability, quantified by the magnetopause standoff distance, shows a positive correlation with magnetic field strength and a negative correlation with magnetic axis tilt…
BoRui Wang, ShengYi Ye, J.Varela, XinYi Luo
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2504.16662 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2504.16662v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.16662
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Submission history
From: BoRui Wang
[v1] Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:28:26 UTC (8,618 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16662
Astrobiology,
