Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21533903k&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #339.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.444
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We discuss the dynamical stability of hypothetical terrestrial mass planets (1 -10 Earth masses) in the habitable zone (HZ) of systems which have an additional massive planet. We consider arbitrary masses and orbits, which cover the range of observed planetary system architectures. We determine stability through N-body simulations which we compare to the analytic "Hill" stability boundary. We show that for given masses and orbits, the stability of two-planet systems is well-modeled by the proximity to the Hill stability boundary, which we call the "stable threshold boundary". Our results indicate that the fraction of the HZ that is stable decreases with increasing eccentricity of the more massive companion, as expected from previous results. We also find that the closer the mass ratio of the planets is to unity, the larger the stable region. These results provide a critical revision to the HZ based on dynamical stability. We apply this new criterion to known one-planet systems in order to determine the fraction of their HZs that is stable, thereby producing a catalog to assist observers find habitable planets. These analyses clarify the stability boundaries in exoplanetary systems, demonstrate that costly numerical simulations are unnecessary to map out stability boundaries, and identify systems which may contain habitable planets.
Barnes Robin
Kopparapu Ravi Kumar
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