Orbital Migration Of Giant Planets: Using Numerical Integration To Investigate Consequences For Other Bodies |
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Authors: | Sleep Peter N |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Physics and Astronomy, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, UK. |
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Abstract: | A number of extrasolar planets have been detected in close orbits around nearby stars. It is probable that these planets did
not form in these orbits but migrated from their formation locations beyond the ice line. Orbital migration mechanisms involving
angular momentum transfer through tidal interactions between the planets and circumstellar gas-dust disks or by gravitational
interaction with a residual planetesimal disk together with several means of halting inward migration have been identified.
These offer plausible schemes to explain the orbits of observed extrasolar giant planets and giant planets within the Solar
System. Recent advances in numerical integration methods and in the power of computer workstations have allowed these techniques
to be applied to modelling directly the mechanisms and consequences of orbital migration in the Solar System. There is now
potential for these techniques also to be applied to modelling the consequences of the orbital migration of planets in the
observed exoplanetary systems. In particular the detailed investigation of the stability of terrestrial planets in the habitable
zone of these systems and the formation of terrestrial planets after the dissipation of the gas disk is now possible. The
stability of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of selected exoplanetary systems has been established and the possibility
of the accretion of terrestrial planets in these systems is being investigated by the author in collaboration with Barrie
W. Jones (Open University), and with John Chambers (NASA-Ames) and Mark Bailey of Armagh Observatory, using numerical integration.
The direct simulation of orbital migration by planetesimal scattering must probably await faster hardware and/or more efficient
algorithms.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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Keywords: | Accretion exoplanetary system extrasolar planets numerical integration orbital migration stability |
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