Dynamical Outcomes of Planet-Planet Scattering

By S. Chatterjee, Eric B. Ford, S. Matsumura, F. Rasio. 2007

693 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Observations in the past decade have revealed extrasolar planets with a wide range of orbital semimajor axes and eccentricities. Based on the present understanding of planet formation via core accretion and oligarchic growth, we expect that giant planets often form in closely packed configurations. While the protoplanets are embedded in a protoplanetary gas disk, dissipation can prevent eccentricity growth and suppress instabilities from becoming manifest. However, once the disk dissipates, eccentricities can grow rapidly, leading to close encounters between planets. Strong planet-planet gravitational scattering could produce both high eccentricities and, after tidal circularization, very short period planets, as observed in the exoplanet population. We present new results for this scenario based on extensive dynamical integrations of systems containing three giant planets, both with and without residual gas disks. We assign the initial planetary masses and orbits in a realistic manner following the core accretion model of planet formation. We show that, with realistic initial conditions, planet-planet scattering can reproduce quite well the observed eccentricity distribution. Our results also make testable predictions for the orbital inclinations of short-period giant planets formed via strong planet scattering followed by tidal circularization.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/42a6ed90657880c6ecd94c1b431c899c6bab268d

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Citations in the corpus

• PLANET OCCURRENCE WITHIN 0.25 AU OF SOLAR-TYPE STARS FROM KEPLER (2011, background): “…be strongly shaped by processes that take place after the gas clears, namely, planet–planet scattering (e.g., Ford et al. 2005; Ford & Rasio 2008; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Raymond et al. 2009), secular and resonant migration (e.g., Lithwick & Wu 2011; Wu & Lithwick 2011), and planetesimal…”
• EXOPLANETARY SPIN–ORBIT ALIGNMENT: RESULTS FROM THE ENSEMBLE OF ROSSITER–MCLAUGHLIN OBSERVATIONS (2009, background): “…occasionally large misalignments (Ford et al. 2001; Yu & Tremaine 2001; Papaloizou & Terquem 2001; Terquem & Papaloizou 2002; Marzari & Weidenschilling 2002; Thommes & Lissauer 2003; Wu et al. 2007; Fabrycky & Tremaine 2007; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Jurić & Tremaine 2008; Nagasawa et al. 2008).”
• Planet-Disk Interaction and Orbital Evolution (2012, background): “As an alternative, it has been suggested that different processes such as planet-planet scattering (Chatterjee et al., 2008) and/or the Kozai mechanism combined with stellar tides (Fabrycky & Tremaine, 2007) may play an important role.”
• EVIDENCE OF POSSIBLE SPIN–ORBIT MISALIGNMENT ALONG THE LINE OF SIGHT IN TRANSITING EXOPLANET SYSTEMS (2010, background): “…calculations for two different is distributions resulting from two different ψ distributions: (1) corresponding to planetplanet scattering (e.g. Chatterjee et al. 2008), a case in which the inclination of the host star is completely independent of the alignment of the orbit of its planet is…”
• TRANSIT TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM KEPLER. IV. CONFIRMATION OF FOUR MULTIPLE-PLANET SYSTEMS BY SIMPLE PHYSICAL MODELS (2012, background): “When third planets are added, stability constraints have been found by numerical integrations to become even more stringent (Chambers et al. 1996; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Fabrycky & Murray-Clay 2010a).”
• TIDAL EVOLUTION OF CLOSE-IN PLANETS (2010, background): “Although such interactions alone may not be able to populate 2 the inner region of planetary systems (less than 0.1 − 1AU, e.g., Adams & Laughlin 2003; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Matsumura et al. 2010), the orbital eccentricity can be increased due to scattering, ejection, or Kozai cycles (Kozai 1962;…”
• Predictions of the WFIRST Microlensing Survey. I. Bound Planet Detection Rates (2018, background): “The masses and number of ejected planets from the system will be determined by the number of planets in their original systems, their masses and orbital distribution (e.g, Papaloizou & Terquem 2001; Jurić & Tremaine 2008; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Barclay et al. 2017).”
• ZODIACAL EXOPLANETS IN TIME (ZEIT). III. A SHORT-PERIOD PLANET ORBITING A PRE-MAIN-SEQUENCE STAR IN THE UPPER SCORPIUS OB ASSOCIATION (2016, background): “…categories: interactions with the protoplanetary disk (e.g., Ida & Lin 2008; Lubow & Ida 2010), interactions between a stellar companion and the planet (the Lidov-Kozai mechanism, e.g., Wu & Murray 2003), and interactions among multiple planets (e.g., Ford & Ra- sio 2006; Chatterjee et al. 2008).”
• Spacing of Kepler Planets: Sculpting by Dynamical Instability (2015, background): “For systems where there are more than 2 planets, there is yet no theoretical understanding for the origin of dynamical instability (see attempts by, e.g. Chambers et al. 1996; Zhou et al. 2007; Quillen 2011).”
• MULTIPLE-PLANET SCATTERING AND THE ORIGIN OF HOT JUPITERS (2011, background): “While many works considered planet scattering (e.g. Marzari & Weidenschilling 2002, Chatterjee et al. 2008, Juric & Tremaine 2008), Nagasawa et al. (2008) pioneered the statistical studies of planet scattering with tidal effects.”
• THE FORMATION MECHANISM OF GAS GIANTS ON WIDE ORBITS (2009, positive): “Thus, the scattering is triggered by dynamical instability in a chaotic system rather than the choice of initial conditions (Chatterjee et al. 2008).”
• On the tidal evolution of Hot Jupiters on inclined orbits (2009, background): “Recent studies of stage 2 (Jurić & Tremaine 2008; Chatterjee et al. 2008; Ford & Rasio 2008) have shown that this is a chaotic era, in which planet–planet scatterings force the ejection of all but a few (∼ 2−3) planets from the system, in a period of large–scale dynamical instability lasting .”
• The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N at TNG - XIV. Investigating giant planet migration history via improved eccentricity and mass determination for 231 transiting planets (2017, neutral): “Initial high eccentricities and spin-orbit misalignments are thought to be produced after disc dissipation by planet-planet scattering (e.g. Chatterjee et al. 2008), Kozai-type perturbations induced by a distant stellar or planetary companion on a highly inclined orbit (e.g. Fabrycky & Tremaine…”
• FRIENDS OF HOT JUPITERS. I. A RADIAL VELOCITY SEARCH FOR MASSIVE, LONG-PERIOD COMPANIONS TO CLOSE-IN GAS GIANT PLANETS (2013, background): “…Fabrycky & Tremaine 2007; Naoz et al. 2012; Teyssandier et al. 2013b), which requires a distant stellar companion, planet-planet scattering (e.g., Chatterjee et al. 2008; Nagasawa et al. 2008), and secular chaotic excursions (Wu & Lithwick 2011; Lithwick & Wu 2013) frequently produce close-in…”