Jeans escape

English

Etymology

Named after English physicist Sir Template:W (1877–1946), who is credited with calculating the rate of such atmospheric escape.

Noun

1. Template:Lb A type of atmospheric escape in which a light gas atom or molecule (typically a helium atom or hydrogen molecule) gains sufficient momentum through collision with other molecules to escape the atmosphere (and gravitational pull) of a planet.
   • 2014, Eugene F. Milone, William J. F. Wilson, Solar System Astrophysics, Springer, 2nd Edition, page 413,

     As will be seem in Sects. 11.7.2.3 and 11.7.3.2, Jeans escape of $\mathrm{H}$ atoms from Venus is negligible compared to other, nonthermal mechanisms, whereas Jeans escape dominates the loss of $\mathrm{H}$ from Mars. On both planets, Jeans escape of $\mathrm{O}$, $\mathrm{O}{\phantom{A}}_2$ and $\mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}{\phantom{A}}_2$ is negligible.

   • 2017, Kevin Heng, Exoplanetary Atmospheres, Template:W, page 213,

     The simplest model of Jeans escape [112], a mechanism named after the Englishman James H. Jeans, assumes that the constituent particles of the atmosphere may be described by a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution,

     $f_M={\left(\frac{a}{\pi }\right)}^{3/2}n{e}^{-a{v}^2}$,     (13.6)

     where $a\equiv m/2k_{B}T$, $n$ is the number density of particles and $v$ is the magnitude of the velocity.

   • 2021, Mark H. Thiemens, Mang Lin, 2: Discoveries of Mass Independent Isotope Effects in the Solar System, Ilya N. Bindeman, Andreas Pack (editors), Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Volume 86: Triple Oxygen Isotope Geochemistry, Template:W, page 70,

     The hydrogen is lost from the system by diffusion and Jeans escapes.

Translations

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