Modeling Polarization Signals from Cloudy Brown Dwarfs: Luhman 16 A and B in Three Dimensions

Abstract

The detection of disk-integrated polarization from Luhman 16A and B in H-band, and subsequent modeling, has been interpreted in the framework of zonal cloud bands on these bodies. Recently, Tan and Showman (2021) investigated three-dimensional atmospheric circulation and cloud structures of brown dwarfs with general circulation models (GCMs), and their simulations yield complex cloud distributions showing some aspects of zonal jets, but also complex vortices that cannot be captured by a simple model. Here we use these 3D GCMs specific to Luhman 16A and B, along with the three-dimensional Monte Carlo radiative transfer code ARTES, to calculate their polarization signals.We adopt the 3D temperature-pressure and cloud profiles from the GCMs as our input atmospheric structures. Our polarization calculations at 1.6 µm agree well with the measured degree of linear polarization from both Luhman 16 A and B. Our calculations reproduce the measured polarization for both the objects with cloud particle sizes between 0.5-1 µm for Luhman 16 A and 5 µm for Luhman 16 B. We find that the degree of linear polarization can vary on hour-long timescales over the course of a rotation period. We also show that models with azimuthally symmetric band-like cloud geometries, typically used for interpreting polarimetry observations of brown dwarfs, over-predict the polarization signal if the cloud patterns do not include complex vortices within these bands. This exploratory work shows that GCMs are promising for modeling and interpreting polarization signals of brown dwarfs.

Roaring Storms in the Planetary-Mass Companion VHS 1256-1257 b: Hubble Space Telescope Multi-epoch Monitoring Reveals Vigorous Evolution in an Ultra-cool Atmosphere

“…Whether VHS 1256 b, a slower rotator, has similar atmospheric dynamical properties requires further investigation. Doppler imaging (Crossfield et al 2014) and time-resolved polarization observations (e.g., Millar-Blanchaer et al 2020;Mukherjee et al 2021) can also offer unique constraints on the circulation patterns of VHS 1256 b.…”