Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-01-03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Content: 17 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Submitted for publication on 2012 January 2. Updates since previous submission (2012 Ja
Scientific paper
Debates regarding the age and inclination of the planetary system orbiting the star HR 8799 and the recent release of additional astrometric data prompted us to carry out a series of dynamical simulations of this system at several different inclinations for planetary masses of 7-10-10-10 MJup. We find the longest system lifetimes are less than ~5 Myr at inclinations of 0{\deg} and 13{\deg}, and ~41, ~46, and ~31 Myr at 18{\deg}, 23{\deg}, and 30{\deg}, respectively. Given such short dynamical lifetimes, and considering the location of the system on the age-luminosity diagram for low-mass objects, the most reasonable conclusion is that the planetary masses are less than 7-10-10-10 MJup and the system is quite young. We do find, however, one model at i=30{\deg} that remains stable for ~155 Myr, permitting an older system with higher mass planets. Although the chi-squared statistics for this model are marginal, at best, we are not inclined to reject it because of the potential for systematic differences between the astrometric data obtained with different instruments. Furthermore, we constrained the orbital elements of the planets to their astrometric coordinates from one particular instrument at a single epoch, and we assumed the orbits of the planets to be coplanar. The interesting trend to note from our simulations is that the coordinates for planet e in the most stable models tend to be closer to the star than the observed coordinates. We present the details of our models and discuss the implications of the results.
Haghighipour Nader
Sudol Jeffrey J.
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