Collisional Evolution of Irregular Satellite Swarms: Detectable Dust around Solar System and Extrasolar Planets

Abstract

Since the 1980's it has been becoming increasingly clear that the Solar System's irregular satellites are collisionally evolved. We derive a general model for the collisional evolution of an irregular satellite swarm and apply it to the Solar System and extrasolar planets. Our model reproduces the Solar System's complement of observed irregulars well, and suggests that the competition between grain-grain collisions and Poynting-Robertson (PR) drag helps set the fate of the dust. Because swarm collision rates decrease over time the main dust sink can change with time, and may help unravel the accretion history of synchronously rotating regular satellites that show brightness asymmetries. Some level of dust must be present on AU scales around the Solar System's giant planets, which we predict may be at detectable levels. We also predict whether dust produced by extrasolar circumplanetary swarms can be detected. The coronagraphic instruments on JWST will have the ability to detect the dust generated by these swarms, which are most detectable around planets that orbit at tens of AU from the youngest stars. Because the collisional decay of swarms is relatively insensitive to planet mass, swarms can be much brighter than their host planets and allow discovery of Neptune-mass planets that would otherwise remain invisible. This dust may have already been detected. The observations of the planet Fomalhaut b can be explained as scattered light from dust produced by the collisional decay of an irregular satellite swarm around a 10 Earth-mass planet. Such a swarm comprises about 5 Lunar masses worth of irregular satellites. Finally, we consider what happens if Fomalhaut b passes through Fomalhaut's main debris ring, which allows the circumplanetary swarm to be replenished through collisions with ring planetesimals. (abridged)