  Earth-mass planets are expected to have atmospheres and experience thermal
tides raised by the host star. These tides transfer energy to the planet that
can counter the dissipation from bodily tides. Indeed, even a relatively thin
atmosphere can drive the rotation of these planets away from the synchronous
state. Here we revisit the dynamical evolution of planets undergoing thermal
atmospheric tides. We use a novel approach based on a vectorial formalism,
which is frame independent and valid for any configuration of the system,
including any eccentricity and obliquity values. We provide the secular
equations of motion after averaging over the mean anomaly and the argument of
the pericenter, which are suitable to model the long-term spin and orbital
evolution of the planet.
