Resonances as a Record of Planetary Migration

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Scientific paper

Many characteristics of extrasolar planets are often attributed to gas-disk-fueled "Type II" planetary migration (Ward 1997). Our own solar system's architecture is best explained by past planetesimal-driven migration of outer planets (Fernandez and Ip 1984). Both migration mechanisms are likely to be present to some degree in all systems. The possible effects of gas-driven migration in our solar system have been explored by Crida and Morbidelli (2007), while Thommes et al. (2006) and Morbidelli et al. (2007) studied the combined effect of both. These studies suggest that Type II migration may drive the giant planets into a resonant configuration which is stable against further orbital decay. Once the gas is gone planetesimal-driven migration can break the resonances and lead to a second episode of migration.
Do the currently known exoplanets tell us anything on how widespread this scenario is? Eccentric or tidally-damped single-planet systems, as well as barely-stable systems of non-resonant eccentric planets, together paint a picture of planet-planet scattering (Rasio and Ford 1996, Barnes and Quinn 2004), which can result from migration but erases much of the evidence. However, resonant systems indicate that the last episode of migration was convergent. Despite small-number statistics, known compact two planet systems (period ratio < 4) suggest that the resonant lock is correlated with the higher total system mass. While more massive systems probably experience less planetesimal-driven migration (due to a relatively less abundant "fuel"), they could still have their resonant lock broken by limited divergent migration. Our preliminary hypothesis is that we are seeing a survival bias among the massive systems, as many of them may become unstable once the resonance is broken (Gladman 1993, Fabrycky and Murray-Clay 2008). This hypothesis can be tested by simulating the a range of resonant systems exposed to interactions with a planetesimal disk.

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