scholarly journals Close encounters with the Death Star: Interactions between collapsed bodies and the Solar System

2021 ◽  
Vol 648 ◽  
pp. L2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Václav Pavlík ◽  
Steven N. Shore

Aims. We aim to investigate the consequences of a fast massive stellar remnant – a black hole (BH) or a neutron star (NS) – encountering a planetary system. Methods. We modelled a close encounter between the actual Solar System (SS) and a 2 M⊙ NS and a 10 M⊙ BH, using a few-body symplectic integrator. We used a range of impact parameters, orbital phases at the start of the simulation derived from the current SS orbital parameters, encounter velocities, and incidence angles relative to the plane of the SS. Results. We give the distribution of possible outcomes, such as when the SS remains bound, when it suffers a partial or complete disruption, and in which cases the intruder is able to capture one or more planets, yielding planetary systems around a BH or a NS. We also show examples of the long-term stability of the captured planetary systems.

2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. 1366-1376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daohai Li ◽  
Alexander J Mustill ◽  
Melvyn B Davies

ABSTRACTStars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, 10–20 per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to encounter another star at distances closer than 100 au. These close encounters strongly perturb the planetary systems, directly causing ejection of planets or their capture by the intruding star, as well as exciting the orbits. Using extensive N-body simulations, we study such fly-by encounters between two Solar system analogues, each with four giant planets from Jupiter to Neptune. We quantify the rates of loss and capture immediately after the encounter, e.g. the Neptune analogue is lost in one in four encounters within 100 au, and captured by the flying-by star in 1 in 12 encounters. We then perform long-term (up to 1 Gyr) simulations investigating the ensuing post-encounter evolution. We show that large numbers of planets are removed from systems due to planet–planet interactions and that captured planets further enhance the system instability. While encounters can initially leave a planetary system containing more planets by inserting additional ones, the long-term instability causes a net reduction in planet number. A captured planet ends up on a retrograde orbit in half of the runs in which it survives for 1Gyr; also, a planet bound to its original host star but flipped during the encounter may survive. Thus, encounters between planetary systems are a channel to create counter-rotating planets, This would happen in around 1 per cent of systems, and such planets are potentially detectable through astrometry or direct imaging.


2019 ◽  
Vol 624 ◽  
pp. A46 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Leleu ◽  
J. Lillo-Box ◽  
M. Sestovic ◽  
P. Robutel ◽  
A. C. M. Correia ◽  
...  

Despite the existence of co-orbital bodies in the solar system, and the prediction of the formation of co-orbital planets by planetary system formation models, no co-orbital exoplanets (also called trojans) have been detected thus far. Here we study the signature of co-orbital exoplanets in transit surveys when two planet candidates in the system orbit the star with similar periods. Such a pair of candidates could be discarded as false positives because they are not Hill-stable. However, horseshoe or long-libration-period tadpole co-orbital configurations can explain such period similarity. This degeneracy can be solved by considering the transit timing variations (TTVs) of each planet. We subsequently focus on the three-planet-candidate system TOI-178: the two outer candidates of that system have similar orbital periods and were found to have an angular separation close to π∕3 during the TESS observation of sector 2. Based on the announced orbits, the long-term stability of the system requires the two close-period planets to be co-orbital. Our independent detrending and transit search recover and slightly favour the three orbits close to a 3:2:2 resonant chain found by the TESS pipeline, although we cannot exclude an alias that would put the system close to a 4:3:2 configuration. We then analyse the co-orbital scenario in more detail, and show that despite the influence of an inner planet just outside the 2:3 MMR, this potential co-orbital system could be stable on a gigayear time-scale for a variety of planetary masses, either on a trojan or a horseshoe orbit. We predict that large TTVs should arise in such a configuration with a period of several hundred days. We then show how the mass of each planet can be retrieved from these TTVs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 592 ◽  
pp. A147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ylva Götberg ◽  
Melvyn B. Davies ◽  
Alexander J. Mustill ◽  
Anders Johansen ◽  
Ross P. Church

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 1115-1126
Author(s):  
M Pereyra ◽  
D Altamirano ◽  
J M C Court ◽  
N Degenaar ◽  
R Wijnands ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT IGR J17091–3624 is a low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB), which received wide attention from the community thanks to its similarities with the bright black hole system GRS 1915+105. Both systems exhibit a wide range of highly structured X-ray variability during outburst, with time-scales from few seconds to tens of minutes, which make them unique in the study of mass accretion in LMXBs. In this work, we present a general overview into the long-term evolution of IGR J17091–3624, using Swift/XRT observations from the onset of the 2011–2013 outburst in 2011 February till the end of the last bright outburst in 2016 November. We found four re-flares during the decay of the 2011 outburst, but no similar re-flares appear to be present in the latter one. We studied, in detail, the period with the lowest flux observed in the last 10 yr, just at the tail end of the 2011–2013 outburst, using Chandra and XMM-Newton observations. We observed changes in flux as high as a factor of 10 during this period of relative quiescence, without strong evidence of softening in the spectra. This result suggests that the source has not been observed at its true quiescence so far. By comparing the spectral properties at low luminosities of IGR J17091–3624 and those observed for a well-studied population of LMXBs, we concluded that IGR J17091–3624 is most likely to host a black hole as a compact companion rather than a neutron star.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (2) ◽  
pp. 1807-1825
Author(s):  
Katja Stock ◽  
Maxwell X Cai ◽  
Rainer Spurzem ◽  
M B N Kouwenhoven ◽  
Simon Portegies Zwart

ABSTRACT Despite the discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent years, the number of known exoplanets in star clusters remains tiny. This may be a consequence of close stellar encounters perturbing the dynamical evolution of planetary systems in these clusters. Here, we present the results from direct N-body simulations of multiplanetary systems embedded in star clusters containing N = 8k, 16k, 32k, and 64k stars. The planetary systems, which consist of the four Solar system giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are initialized in different orbital configurations, to study the effect of the system architecture on the dynamical evolution of the entire planetary system, and on the escape rate of the individual planets. We find that the current orbital parameters of the Solar system giants (with initially circular orbits, as well as with present-day eccentricities) and a slightly more compact configuration, have a high resilience against stellar perturbations. A configuration with initial mean-motion resonances of 3:2, 3:2, and 5:4 between the planets, which is inspired by the Nice model, and for which the two outermost planets are usually ejected within the first 105 yr, is in many cases stabilized due to the removal of the resonances by external stellar perturbation and by the rapid ejection of at least one planet. Assigning all planets the same mass of 1 MJup almost equalizes the survival fractions. Our simulations reproduce the broad diversity amongst observed exoplanet systems. We find not only many very wide and/or eccentric orbits, but also a significant number of (stable) retrograde orbits.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S276) ◽  
pp. 304-307
Author(s):  
Melvyn B. Davies

AbstractMany stars are formed in some form of cluster or association. These environments can have a much higher number density of stars than the field of the galaxy. Such crowded places are hostile environments: a large fraction of initially single stars will undergo close encounters with other stars or exchange into binaries. We describe how such close encounters and exchange encounters will affect the properties of a planetary system around a single star. We define singletons as single stars which have never suffered close encounters with other stars or spent time within a binary system. It may be that planetary systems similar to our own solar system can only survive around singletons. Close encounters or the presence of a stellar companion will perturb the planetary system, leading to strong planet-planet interactions, often leaving planets on tighter and more eccentric orbits. Thus, planetary systems which initially resembled our own solar system may later more closely resemble the observed extrasolar planetary systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 494 (2) ◽  
pp. 2280-2288
Author(s):  
J P Marshall ◽  
J Horner ◽  
R A Wittenmyer ◽  
J T Clark ◽  
M W Mengel

ABSTRACT The orbital solutions of published multiplanet systems are not necessarily dynamically stable on time-scales comparable to the lifetime of the system as a whole. For this reason, dynamical tests of the architectures of proposed exoplanetary systems are a critical tool to probe the stability and feasibility of the candidate planetary systems, with the potential to point the way towards refined orbital parameters of those planets. Such studies can even help in the identification of additional companions in such systems. Here, we examine the dynamical stability of three planetary systems, orbiting HD 67087, HD 110014, and HD 133131A. We use the published radial velocity measurements of the target stars to determine the best-fitting orbital solutions for these planetary systems using the systemic console. We then employ the N-body integrator mercury to test the stability of a range of orbital solutions lying within 3σ of the nominal best fit for a duration of 100 Myr. From the results of the N-body integrations, we infer the best-fitting orbital parameters using the Bayesian package astroemperor. We find that both HD 110014 and HD 133131A have long-term stable architectures that lie within the 1σ uncertainties of the nominal best fit to their previously determined orbital solutions. However, the HD 67087 system exhibits a strong tendency towards instability on short time-scales. We compare these results to the predictions made from consideration of the angular momentum deficit criterion, and find that its predictions are consistent with our findings.


1984 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Lior ◽  
R. T. Brish ◽  
L. Tedori ◽  
S. Koffs

2021 ◽  
Vol 163 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Kane ◽  
Bradford J. Foley ◽  
Michelle L. Hill ◽  
Cayman T. Unterborn ◽  
Thomas Barclay ◽  
...  

Abstract The diverse planetary systems that have been discovered are revealing the plethora of possible architectures, providing insights into planet formation and evolution. They also increase our understanding of system parameters that may affect planetary habitability, and how such conditions are influenced by initial conditions. The AU Mic system is unique among known planetary systems in that it is a nearby, young, multiplanet transiting system. Such a young and well-characterized system provides an opportunity for orbital dynamical and habitability studies for planets in the very early stages of their evolution. Here, we calculate the evolution of the Habitable Zone of the system through time, including the pre-main-sequence phase that the system currently resides in. We discuss the planetary atmospheric processes occurring for an Earth-mass planet during this transitional period, and provide calculations of the climate state convergence age for both volatile rich and poor initial conditions. We present results of an orbital dynamical analysis of the AU Mic system that demonstrate the rapid eccentricity evolution of the known planets, and show that terrestrial planets within the Habitable Zone of the system can retain long-term stability. Finally, we discuss follow-up observation prospects, detectability of possible Habitable Zone planets, and how the AU Mic system may be used as a template for studies of planetary habitability evolution.


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