No Arabic abstract
A significant fraction of the hot Jupiters with final circularized orbital periods of less than 5 days are thought to form through the channel of high-eccentricity migration. Tidal dissipation at successive periastron passages removes orbital energy of the planet, which has the potential for changes in semi-major axis of a factor of ten to a thousand. In the equilibrium tide approximation we show that, in order for high-eccentricity migration to take place, the relative level of tidal dissipation in Jupiter analogues must be at least 10 times higher than the upper-limit attributed to the Jupiter-Io interaction. While this is not a severe problem for high-e migration, it contradicts the results of several previous calculations. We show that these calculations of high-e migration inadvertently over-estimated the strength of tidal dissipation by three to four orders of magnitude. These discrepancies were obscured by the use of various parameters, such as lag time tau, tidal quality factor Q and viscous time t_V. We provide the values of these parameters required for the Jupiter-Io interaction, tidal circularization and high-e migration. Implications for tidal theory as well as models of the inflated radii of hot Jupiters are discussed. Though the tidal Q is not, in general, well-defined, we derive a formula for it during high-eccentricity migration where Q is approximately constant throughout evolution.
The population of exoplanetary systems detected by Kepler provides opportunities to refine our understanding of planet formation. Unraveling the conditions needed to produce the observed exoplanets will sallow us to make informed predictions as to where habitable worlds exist within the galaxy. In this paper, we examine using N-body simulations how the properties of planetary systems are determined during the final stages of assembly. While accretion is a chaotic process, trends in the ensemble properties of planetary systems provide a memory of the initial distribution of solid mass around a star prior to accretion. We also use EPOS, the Exoplanet Population Observation Simulator, to account for detection biases and show that different accretion scenarios can be distinguished from observations of the Kepler systems. We show that the period of the innermost planet, the ratio of orbital periods of adjacent planets, and masses of the planets are determined by the total mass and radial distribution of embryos and planetesimals at the beginning of accretion. In general, some amount of orbital damping, either via planetesimals or gas, during accretion is needed to match the whole population of exoplanets. Surprisingly, all simulated planetary systems have planets that are similar in size, showing that the peas in a pod pattern can be consistent with both a giant impact scenario and a planet migration scenario. The inclusion of material at distances larger than what Kepler observes has a profound impact on the observed planetary architectures, and thus on the formation and delivery of volatiles to possible habitable worlds.
More than 4000 planet are known that orbit stars other than our Sun. Many harbor a dynamic atmosphere that is cold enough that cloud particles can form in abundance. The diversity of exoplanets leads to differences in cloud coverage depending on global system parameters. Some planets will be fully covered in clouds, some have clouds on the nightside but are largely cloud-free on the dayside. These cloud particles can easily be charged and lightning discharges will occur in cloudy, dynamic exoplanet atmosphere. Lightning supports a Global Electric Circuit (GCE) on Earth and we argue that exoplanet may develop a GCE in particular if parts of the exoplanet atmospheres can remain cloud free.
This paper reports circular spectropolarimetry and X-ray observations of several polluted white dwarfs including WD 1145+017, with the aim to constrain the behavior of disk material and instantaneous accretion rates in these evolved planetary systems. Two stars with previously observed Zeeman splitting, WD 0322-019 and WD 2105-820, are detected above 5 sigma and <Bz> > 1 kG, while WD 1145+017, WD 1929+011, and WD 2326+049 yield (null) detections below this minimum level of confidence. For these latter three stars, high-resolution spectra and atmospheric modeling are used to obtain limits on magnetic field strengths via the absence of Zeeman splitting, finding B* < 20 kG based on data with resolving power R near 40 000. An analytical framework is presented for bulk Earth composition material falling onto the magnetic polar regions of white dwarfs, where X-rays and cyclotron radiation may contribute to accretion luminosity. This analysis is applied to X-ray data for WD 1145+017, WD 1729+371, and WD 2326+049, and the upper bound count rates are modeled with spectra for a range of plasma kT = 1 - 10 keV in both the magnetic and non-magnetic accretion regimes. The results for all three stars are consistent with a typical dusty white dwarf in a steady-state at 1e8 - 1e9 g/s. In particular, the non-magnetic limits for WD 1145+017 are found to be well below previous estimates of up to 1e12 g/s, and likely below 1e10 g/s, thus suggesting the star-disk system may be average in its evolutionary state, and only special in viewing geometry.
Young stars are mostly found in dense stellar environments, and even our own Solar system may have formed in a star cluster. Here, we numerically explore the evolution of planetary systems similar to our own Solar system in star clusters. We investigate the evolution of planetary systems in star clusters. Most stellar encounters are tidal, hyperbolic, and adiabatic. A small fraction of the planetary systems escape from the star cluster within 50 Myr; those with low escape speeds often remain intact during and after the escape process. While most planetary systems inside the star cluster remain intact, a subset is strongly perturbed during the first 50 Myr. Over the course of time, 0.3 % - 5.3 % of the planets escape, sometimes up to tens of millions of years after a stellar encounter occurred. Survival rates are highest for Jupiter, while Uranus and Neptune have the highest escape rates. Unless directly affected by a stellar encounter itself, Jupiter frequently serves as a barrier that protects the terrestrial planets from perturbations in the outer planetary system. In low-density environments, Jupiter provides protection from perturbations in the outer planetary system, while in high-density environments, direct perturbations of Jupiter by neighbouring stars is disruptive to habitable-zone planets. The diversity amongst planetary systems that is present in the star clusters at 50 Myr, and amongst the escaping planetary systems, is high, which contributes to explaining the high diversity of observed exoplanet systems in star clusters and in the Galactic field
The orbital architecture of the Solar System is thought to have been sculpted by a dynamical instability among the giant planets. During the instability a primordial outer disk of planetesimals was destabilized and ended up on planet-crossing orbits. Most planetesimals were ejected into interstellar space but a fraction were trapped on stable orbits in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. We use a suite of N-body simulations to map out the diversity of planetesimals dynamical pathways. We focus on two processes: tidal disruption from very close encounters with a giant planet, and loss of surface volatiles from repeated passages close to the Sun. We show that the rate of tidal disruption is more than a factor of two higher for ejected planetesimals than for surviving objects in the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud. Ejected planetesimals are preferentially disrupted by Jupiter and surviving ones by Neptune. Given that the gas giants contracted significantly as they cooled but the ice giants did not, taking into account the thermal evolution of the giant planets decreases the disruption rate of ejected planetesimals. The frequency of volatile loss and extinction is far higher for ejected planetesimals than for surviving ones and is not affected by the giant planets contraction. Even if all interstellar objects were ejected from Solar System-like systems, our analysis suggests that their physical properties should be more diverse than those of Solar System small bodies as a result of their divergent dynamical histories. This is consistent with the characteristics of the two currently-known interstellar objects.