Planet Migration and System Coupling

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

In the solar system's present configuration, dynamical coupling between the giant and terrestrial planets is relatively weak. However, several lines of evidence (e.g. the resonant structure of the Kuiper Belt) suggest that large scale planetary migration and redistribution of mass may have occurred in the past. Such global restructuring of the solar system would also have resulted in the tuning and sweeping of the giant planet's pertubations on the rest of the solar system. The timescales for the formation of Uranus and Neptune (106-109 yr) and the subsequent migration of all the outer planets (a few × 107- 108 yr) can be quite long and overlap with the emergence of the terrestrial planets which likely required just 20-200 Myr. Indeed the late migration of the giant planets has been suggested to explain the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment of the Moon (e.g. Levison et al. 2001, Gomes et al. 2005). Here we present an analysis of the dynamical coupling between the solar system's inner and outer planets as a consequence of the giant planets' migration. Using linear secular models and N-body integrations, we examine orbital histories of the giant planets that produce strong coupling between the solar system's giant and terrestrial planets. The emphasis of this study is two-fold: 1) to use the dynamical state of the terrestrial planets to constrain the timing and/or conditions of giant planet migration, and 2) to explore the specific effects of giant planet migration on the inner solar system. Our initial results have identified several migration paths that result in secular resonant coupling between the terrestrial and giant planets. In this presentation we will discuss the implications of this strong coupling for proposed giant planet migration histories and the characteristics of the terrestrial planets.

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