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Register a new userPlanet formation around binary stars: Tatooine made easy
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We examine characteristics of circumbinary orbits in the context of current planet formation scenarios. Analytical perturbation theory predicts the existence of nested circumbinary orbits that are generalizations of circular paths around a single star. These orbits have forced eccentric motion aligned with the binary as well as higher frequency oscillations, yet they do not cross, even in the presence of massive disks and perturbations from large planets. For this reason, dissipative gas and planetesimals can settle onto these most circular orbits, facilitating the growth of protoplanets. Outside a region close to the binary where orbits are generally unstable, circumbinary planets form in much the same way as their cousins around a single star. Here, we review the theory and confirm its predictions with a suite of representative simulations. We then consider the circumbinary planets discovered with NASAs Kepler satellite. These Neptune- and Jupiter-size planets, or their planetesimal precursors, may have migrated inward to reach their observed orbits, since their current positions are outside of unstable zones caused by overlapping resonances. In situ formation without migration seems less likely, only because the surface density of the protoplanetary disks must be implausibly high. Otherwise, the circumbinary environment is friendly to planet formation, and we expect that many Earth-like Tatooines will join the growing census of circumbinary planets.
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Identifying planets around O-type and B-type stars is inherently difficult; the most massive known planet host has a mass of only about $3M_{odot}$. However, planetary systems which survive the transformation of their host stars into white dwarfs can be detected via photospheric trace metals, circumstellar dusty and gaseous discs, and transits of planetary debris crossing our line-of-sight. These signatures offer the potential to explore the efficiency of planet formation for host stars with masses up to the core-collapse boundary at $approx 8M_{odot}$, a mass regime rarely investigated in planet formation theory. Here, we establish limits on where both major and minor planets must reside around $approx 6M_{odot}-8M_{odot}$ stars in order to survive into the white dwarf phase. For this mass range, we find that intact terrestrial or giant planets need to leave the main sequence beyond approximate minimum star-planet separations of respectively about 3 and 6 au. In these systems, rubble pile minor planets of radii 10, 1.0, and 0.1 km would have been shorn apart by giant branch radiative YORP spin-up if they formed and remained within, respectively, tens, hundreds and thousands of au. These boundary values would help distinguish the nature of the progenitor of metal-pollution in white dwarf atmospheres. We find that planet formation around the highest mass white dwarf progenitors may be feasible, and hence encourage both dedicated planet formation investigations for these systems and spectroscopic analyses of the highest mass white dwarfs.
We conduct a pebble-driven planet population synthesis study to investigate the formation of planets around very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs, in the (sub)stellar mass range between $0.01 M_{odot}$ and $0.1 M_{odot}$. Based on the extrapolation of numerical simulations of planetesimal formation by the streaming instability, we obtain the characteristic mass of the planetesimals and the initial masses of the protoplanets (largest bodies from the planetesimal size distributions), in either the early self-gravitating phase or the later non-self-gravitating phase of the protoplanetary disk evolution. We find that the initial protoplanets form with masses that increase with host mass, orbital distance and decrease with disk age. Around late M-dwarfs of $0.1 M_{odot}$, these protoplanets can grow up to Earth-mass planets by pebble accretion. However, around brown dwarfs of $0.01 M_{odot}$, planets do not grow larger than Mars mass when the initial protoplanets are born early in self-gravitating disks, and their growth stalls at around $0.01$ Earth-mass when they are born late in non-self-gravitating disks. Around these low mass stars and brown dwarfs, we find no channel for gas giant planet formation because the solid cores remain too small. When the initial protoplanets form only at the water-ice line, the final planets typically have ${gtrsim} 15%$ water mass fraction. Alternatively, when the initial protoplanets form log-uniformly distributed over the entire protoplanetary disk, the final planets are either very water-rich (water mass fraction ${gtrsim}15%$) or entirely rocky (water mass fraction ${lesssim}5%$).
Habitable zones are regions around stars where large bodies of liquid water can be sustained on a planet or satellite. As many stars form in binary systems with non-zero eccentricity, the habitable zones around the component stars of the binary can overlap and be enlarged when the two stars are at periastron (and less often when the stars are at apastron). We perform N-body simulations of the evolution of dense star-forming regions and show that binary systems where the component stars originally have distinct habitable zones can undergo interactions that push the stars closer together, causing the habitable zones to merge and become enlarged. Occasionally, overlapping habitable zones can occur if the component stars move further apart, but the binary becomes more eccentric. Enlargement of habitable zones happens to 1-2 binaries from an average initial total of 352 in each simulated star-forming region, and demonstrates that dense star-forming regions are not always hostile environments for planet formation and evolution.
Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital parameters of the binary system a planet will be dynamically stable if it orbits within some critical separation of the semimajor axis in the circumprimary case, or beyond some critical separation for the circumbinary case. We present N-body simulations of star-forming regions that contain populations of primordial binaries to determine the fraction of binary systems that can host stable planets at various semimajor axes, and how this fraction of stable systems evolves over time. Dynamical encounters in star-forming regions can alter the orbits of some binary systems, which can induce long-term dynamical instabilities in the planetary system and can even change the size of the habitable zone(s) of the component stars. However, the overall fraction of binaries that can host stable planetary systems is not greatly affected by either the assumed binary population, or the density of the star-forming region. Instead, the critical factor in determining how many stable planetary systems exist in the Galaxy is the stellar binary fraction - the more stars that are born as singles in stellar nurseries, the higher the fraction of stable planetary systems.
We report detection of quasi-periodic (1.5 day) dimming of HD 240779, the solar-mass primary in a 5 visual binary (also TIC 284730577), by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. This dimming, as has been shown for other dipper stars, is likely due to occultation by circumstellar dust. The barycentric space motion, lithium abundance, rotation, and chromospheric emission of the stars in this system point to an age of ~125 Myr, and possible membership in the AB Doradus moving group. As such it occupies an important but poorly explored intermediate regime of stars with transient dimming between young stellar objects in star forming regions and main sequence stars, and between UX Orionis-type Ae/Be stars and M-type dippers. HD 240779, but not its companion BD+10714B, has WISE-detected excess infrared emission at 12 and 22 microns indicative of circumstellar dust. We propose that infrared emission is produced by collisions of planetesimals during clearing of a residual disk at the end of rocky planet formation, and that quasi-periodic dimming is produced by the rapid disintegration of a 100 km planetesimal near the silicate evaporation radius. Further studies of this and similar systems will illuminate a poorly understood final phase of rocky planet formation like that which produced the inner Solar System.
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