Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-01-06
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
19 pages, 12 figures
Scientific paper
The recent discovery of free-floating planets and their theoretical interpretation as celestial bodies, either condensed independently or ejected from parent stars in tight clusters, introduced an intriguing possibility. Namely the existence of exoplanets not condensed from the protoplanetary disk of their parent star. In this novel scenario a free-floating planet interacts with an already existing planetary system, created in a tight cluster, and is captured as a new planet. In the present work we study this interaction process by integrating trajectories of planet-sized bodies, which encounter a binary system consisting of a Jupiter-sized planet revolving around a Sun-like star. To simplify the problem we assume coplanar orbits for the bound and the free-floating planet and an initially parabolic orbit for the free-floating planet. By calculating the uncertainty exponent, a quantity that measures the dependence of the final state of the system on small changes of the initial conditions, we show that the interaction process is a fractal classical scattering. In this way we see that the statistical approach we follow to tackle the problem is justified. The possible final outcomes of this interaction are only four, namely flyby, planet exchange, capture or disruption. We give the probability of each outcome as a function of the incoming planet's mass. We find that the probability of exchange or capture (in prograde as well as retrograde orbits and for very long times) is non-negligible, a fact that might explain the possible future observations of planetary systems with orbits either retrograde or tight and highly eccentric.
Sgardeli Vasiliki
Tsiganis Kleomenis
Varvoglis Harry
No associations
LandOfFree
Interaction of free-floating planets with a star-planet pair does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Interaction of free-floating planets with a star-planet pair, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Interaction of free-floating planets with a star-planet pair will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-662295