No Arabic abstract
Earth-mass planets embedded in gaseous protoplanetary disks undergo Type I orbital migration. In radiative disks an additional component of the corotation torque scaling with the entropy gradient across the horseshoe region can counteract the general inward migration, Type I migration can then be directed either inward or outward depending on the local disk properties. Thus, special locations exist in the disk toward which planets migrate in a convergent way. Here we present N-body simulations of the convergent migration of systems of low-mass (M=1-10 m_earth) planets. We show that planets do not actually converge in convergence zones. Rather, they become trapped in chains of mean motion resonances (MMRs). This causes the planets eccentricities to increase to high enough values to affect the structure of the horseshoe region and weaken the positive corotation torque. The zero-torque equilibrium point of the resonant chain of planets is determined by the sum of the attenuated corotation torques and unattenuated differential Lindblad torques acting on each planet. The effective convergence zone is shifted inward. Systems with several planets can experience stochastic migration as a whole due to continuous perturbations from planets entering and leaving resonances.
Planetary systems are born in the disks of gas, dust and rocky fragments that surround newly formed stars. Solid content assembles into ever-larger rocky fragments that eventually become planetary embryos. These then continue their growth by accreting leftover material in the disc. Concurrently, tidal effects in the disc cause a radial drift in the embryo orbits, a process known as migration. Fast inward migration is predicted by theory for embryos smaller than three to five Earth masses. With only inward migration, these embryos can only rarely become giant planets located at Earths distance from the Sun and beyond, in contrast with observations. Here we report that asymmetries in the temperature rise associated with accreting infalling material produce a force (which gives rise to an effect that we call heating torque) that counteracts inward migration. This provides a channel for the formation of giant planets and also explains the strong planet-metallicity correlation found between the incidence of giant planets and the heavy-element abundance of the host stars.
A planet is formed within a protoplanetary disk. Recent observations have revealed substructures such as gaps and rings, which may indicate forming planets within the disk. Due to disk--planet interaction, the planet migrates within the disk, which can affect a shape of the planet-induced gap. In this paper, we investigate effects of fast inward migration of the planet on the gap shape, by carrying out hydrodynamic simulations. We found that when the migration timescale is shorter than the timescale of the gap-opening, the orbital radius is shifted inward as compared to the radial location of the gap. We also found a scaling relation between the radial shift of the locations of the planet and the gap as a function of the ratio of the timescale of the migration and gap-opening. Our scaling relation also enables us to constrain the gas surface density and the viscosity when the gap and the planet are observed. Moreover, we also found the scaling relation between the location of the secondary gap and the aspect ratio. By combining the radial shift and the secondary gap, we may constrain the physical condition of the planet formation and how the planet evolves in the protoplanetary disk, from the observational morphology.
We perform numerical simulations to study the Habitable zones (HZs) and dynamical structure for Earth-mass planets in multiple planetary systems. For example, in the HD 69830 system, we extensively explore the planetary configuration of three Neptune-mass companions with one massive terrestrial planet residing in 0.07 AU $leq a leq$ 1.20 AU, to examine the asteroid structure in this system. We underline that there are stable zones of at least $10^5$ yr for low-mass terrestrial planets locating between 0.3 and 0.5 AU, and 0.8 and 1.2 AU with final eccentricities of $e < 0.20$. Moreover, we also find that the accumulation or depletion of the asteroid belt are also shaped by orbital resonances of the outer planets, for example, the asteroidal gaps at 2:1 and 3:2 mean motion resonances (MMRs) with Planet C, and 5:2 and 1:2 MMRs with Planet D. In a dynamical sense, the proper candidate regions for the existence of the potential terrestrial planets or HZs are 0.35 AU $< a < $ 0.50 AU, and 0.80 AU $< a < $ 1.00 AU for relatively low eccentricities, which makes sense to have the possible asteroidal structure in this system.
In the conventional view of type II migration, a giant planet migrates inward in the viscous velocity of the accretion disc in the so-call disc-dominate case. Recent hydrodynamic simulations, however, showed that planets migrate with velocities much faster than the viscous one in massive discs. Such fast migration cannot be explained by the conventional picture. Scardoni et al. (2020) has recently argued this new picture. By carrying out similar hydrodynamic simulations, they found that the migration velocity slows down with time and eventually reaches the prediction by the conventional theory. They interpreted the fast migration as an initial transient one and concluded that the conventional type II migration is realised after the transient phase. We show that the migration velocities obtained by Scardoni et al. (2020) are consistent with the previous simulations even in the transient phase that they proposed. We also find that the transient fast migration proposed by Scardoni et al. (2020) is well described by a new model of Kanagawa et al. (2018). The new model can appropriately describe significant inward migration during the initial transient phase that Scardoni et al. (2020) termed. Hence, we conclude that the time-variation of the transient migration velocity is due to the changes of the orbital radius of the planet and its background surface density during the migration.
With continued improvement in telescope sensitivity and observational techniques, the search for rocky planets in stellar habitable zones is entering an exciting era. With so many exoplanetary systems available for follow-up observations to find potentially habitable planets, one needs to prioritise the ever-growing list of candidates. We aim to determine which of the known planetary systems are dynamically capable of hosting rocky planets in their habitable zones, with the goal of helping to focus future planet search programs. We perform an extensive suite of numerical simulations to identify regions in the habitable zones of single Jovian planet systems where Earth mass planets could maintain stable orbits, specifically focusing on the systems in the Catalog of Earth-like Exoplanet Survey Targets (CELESTA). We find that small, Earth-mass planets can maintain stable orbits in cases where the habitable zone is largely, or partially, unperturbed by a nearby Jovian, and that mutual gravitational interactions and resonant mechanisms are capable of producing stable orbits even in habitable zones that are significantly or completely disrupted by a Jovian. Our results yield a list of 13 single Jovian planet systems in CELESTA that are not only capable of supporting an Earth-mass planet on stable orbits in their habitable zone, but for which we are also able to constrain the orbits of the Earth-mass planet such that the induced radial velocity signals would be detectable with next generation instruments.