No Arabic abstract
The presented work investigates the possible formation of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of the exoplanetary system HD 141399. In this system the HZ is located approximately between the planets c (a = 0.7 au) and d (a = 2.1 au). Extensive numerical integrations of the equations of motion in the pure Newtonian framework of small bodies with different initial conditions in the HZ are performed. Our investigations included several steps starting with 500 massless bodies distributed between planets c and d in order to model the development of the disk of small bodies. It turns out that after some 10^6 years a belt-like structure analogue to the main belt inside Jupiter in our Solar System appears. We then proceed with giving the small bodies masses (Moon-mass) and take into account the gravitational interaction between these planetesimal-like objects. The growing of the objects - with certain percentage of water - due to collisions is computed in order to look for the formation of terrestrial planets. We observe that planets form in regions connected to mean motion resonances (MMR). So far there is no observational evidence of terrestrial planets in the system of HD 141399 but from our results we can conclude that the formation of terrestrial planets - even with an appropriate amount of water necessary for being habitable - in the HZ would have been possible.
To reproduce the orbits and masses of the terrestrial planets (analogs) of the solar system, most studies scrutinize simulations for success as a batch. However, there is insufficient discussion in the literature on the likelihood of forming planet analogs simultaneously in the same system (analog system). To address this issue, we performed 540 N-body simulations of protoplanetary disks representative of typical models in the literature. We identified a total of 194 analog systems containing at least three analogs, but only 17 systems simultaneously contained analogs of the four terrestrial planets. From an analysis of our analog systems, we found that, compared to the real planets, truncated disks based on typical outcomes of the Grand Tack model produced analogs of Mercury and Mars that were too dynamically cold and located too close to the Venus and Earth analogs. Additionally, all the Mercury analogs were too massive, while most of the Mars analogs were more massive than Mars. Furthermore, the timing of the Moon-forming impact was too early in these systems, and the amount of additional mass accreted after the event was too great. Therefore, such truncated disks cannot explain the formation of the terrestrial planets. Our results suggest that forming the four terrestrial planets requires disks with the following properties: 1) Mass concentrated in narrow core regions between ~0.7-0.9 and ~1.0-1.2 au; 2) an inner region component starting at ~0.3-0.4 au; 3) a less massive component beginning at ~1.0-1.2 au; 4) embryos rather than planetesimals carrying most of the disk mass; and 5) Jupiter and Saturn placed on eccentric orbits.
The Kepler-1647 is a binary system with two Sun-type stars (approximately 1.22 and 0.97 Solar mass). It has the most massive circumbinary planet (1.52 Jupiter mass) with the longest orbital period (1,107.6 days) detected by the Kepler probe and is located within the habitable zone (HZ) of the system. In this work, we investigated the ability to form and house an Earth-sized planet within its HZ. First, we computed the limits of its HZ and performed numerical stability tests within that region. We found that HZ has three sub-regions that show stability, one internal, one co-orbital, and external to the host planet Kepler-1647b. Within the limits of these three regions, we performed numerical simulations of planetary formation. In the regions inner and outer to the planet, we used two different density profiles to explore different conditions of formation. In the co-orbital region, we used eight different values of total disc mass. We showed that many resonances are located within regions causing much of the disc material to be ejected before a planet is formed. Thus, the system might have two asteroid belts with Kirkwood gaps, similar to the Solar Systems main belt of asteroids. The co-orbital region proved to be extremely sensitive, not allowing the planet formation, but showing that this binary system has the capacity to have Trojan bodies. Finally, we looked for regions of stability for an Earth-sized moon. We found that there is stability for a moon with this mass up to 0.4 Hills radius from the host planet.
As part of a national scientific network Pathways to Habitability the formation of planets and the delivery of water onto these planets is a key question as water is essential for the development of life. In the first part of the paper we summarize the state of the art of planet formation - which is still under debate in the astronomical community - before we show our results on this topic. The outcome of our numerical simulations depends a lot on the choice of the initial distribution of planetesimals and planetary embryos after gas disappeared in the protoplanetary disk. We also take into account that some of these planetesimals of sizes in the order of the mass of the Moon already contained water; the quantity depends on the distance from the Sun - close-by bodies are dry, but starting from a distance of about 2 AU they can contain substantial amounts of water. We assume that the gas giants and terrestrial planets are already formed when we check the collisions of the small bodies containing water (in the order of a few percent) with the terrestrial planets. We thus are able to give an estimate of the respective contribution to the actual water content (of some Earth-oceans) in the mantle, in the crust and on the surface of Earth. In the second part we discuss in more detail how the formation of larger bodies after a collision may happen as the outcome depends on parameters like collision velocity, impact angle, and the materials involved. We present results obtained by SPH (Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics) simulations. We briefly describe this method and show different scenarios with respect to the formed bodies, possible fragmentation and the water content before and after the collision. In an appendix we discuss detection methods for extrasolar planets (close to 2000 such objects have been discovered so far).
The K2.5 dwarf HD 40307 has been reported to host three super-Earths. The system lacks massive planets and is therefore a potential candidate for having additional low-mass planetary companions. We re-derive Doppler measurements from public HARPS spectra of HD 40307 to confirm the significance of the reported signals using independent data analysis methods. We also investigate these measurements for additional low-amplitude signals. We used Bayesian analysis of our radial velocities to estimate the probability densities of different model parameters. We also estimated the relative probabilities of models with differing numbers of Keplerian signals and verified their significance using periodogram analyses. We investigated the relation of the detected signals with the chromospheric emission of the star. As previously reported for other objects, we found that radial velocity signals correlated with the S-index are strongly wavelength dependent. We identify two additional clear signals with periods of 34 and 51 days, both corresponding to planet candidates with minimum masses a few times that of the Earth. An additional sixth candidate is initially found at a period of 320 days. However, this signal correlates strongly with the chromospheric emission from the star and is also strongly wavelength dependent. When analysing the red half of the spectra only, the five putative planetary signals are recovered together with a very significant periodicity at about 200 days. This signal has a similar amplitude as the other new signals reported in the current work and corresponds to a planet candidate with M sin i = 7 Me (HD 40307 g). ...
We present the detection of five planets -- Kepler-62b, c, d, e, and f -- of size 1.31, 0.54, 1.95, 1.61 and 1.41 Earth radii, orbiting a K2V star at periods of 5.7, 12.4, 18.2, 122.4 and 267.3 days, respectively. The outermost planets (Kepler-62e & -62f) are super-Earth-size (1.25 < planet radius/earth radius < 2.0) planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of their host star, receiving 1.2 +- 0.2 and 0.41 +- 0.05 times the solar flux at Earths orbit. Theoretical models of Kepler-62e and -62f for a stellar age of ~7 Gyr suggest that both planets could be solid: either with a rocky composition or composed of mostly solid water in their bulk.