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Relationship Between Thermal Tides and Radius Excess

Close-in extrasolar gas giants -- the hot Jupiters -- display departures in radius above the zero-temperature solution, the radius excess, that are anomalously high. The radius excess of hot Jupiters follows a relatively close relation with thermal tidal tidal torques and holds for ~ 4-5 orders of magnitude in a characteristic thermal tidal power in such a way that is consistent with basic theoretical expectations. The relation suggests that thermal tidal torques determine the global thermodynamic and spin state of the hot Jupiters. On empirical grounds, it is shown that theories of hot Jupiter inflation that invoke a constant fraction of the stellar flux to be deposited at great depth are, essentially, falsified.