A5 Inertial modes and tidal friction in stars and planets

Prof. Dr. Stefan Dreizler, Prof. Dr. Gert Lube, Prof. Dr. Andreas Tilgner

The behaviour of rotating fluid bodies is of fundamental importance for geo- and astrophysics. Inertial modes are oscillatory fluid motions in which the Coriolis force is the restoring force. These modes are typically excited by tides, but also by precession, libration, or instabilities. The aim of this project is to explain the location of shear layers in inertial modes and to compute their viscous dissipation, to determine the stability limits of shear layers in rotating flows as well as the dissipation after the onset of instability, and to extend previous results on stability limits for Boussinesq fluids to an ideal gas. The orbital evolution of close binaries will be used as observational test.