We model a tidally forced star or giant planet as a Maclaurin spheroid , decomposing the motion into the normal modes found by .
We first describe the general prescription for this decomposition and the computation of the tidal power .
Although this formalism is very general , forcing due to a companion on a misaligned , circular orbit is used to illustrate the theory .
The tidal power is plotted for a variety of orbital radii , misalignment angles , and spheroid rotation rates .
Our calculations are carried out including all modes of degree l \leq 4 , and the same degree of gravitational forcing .
Remarkably , we find that for close orbits ( a / R _ { * } \approx 3 ) and rotational deformations that are typical of giant planets ( e \approx 0.4 ) the l = 4 component of the gravitational potential may significantly enhance the dissipation through resonance with surface gravity modes .
There are also a large number of resonances with inertial modes , with the tidal power being locally enhanced by up to three orders of magnitude .
For very close orbits ( a / R _ { * } \approx 3 ) , the contribution to the power from the l = 4 modes is roughly the same magnitude as that due to the l = 3 modes .