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arXiv · 1110.1644

Super-Eccentric Migrating Jupiters

Aristotle Socrates·Boaz Katz·Subo Dong·Scott Tremaine
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Abstract

An important class of formation theories for hot Jupiters involves the excitation of extreme orbital eccentricity (e=0.99 or even larger) followed by tidal dissipation at periastron passage that eventually circularizes the planetary orbit at a period less than 10 days. In a steady state, this mechanism requires the existence of a significant population of super-eccentric (e>0.9) migrating Jupiters with long orbital periods and periastron distances of only a few stellar radii. For these super-eccentric planets, the periastron is fixed due to conservation of orbital angular momentum and the energy dissipated per orbit is constant, implying that the rate of change in semi-major axis a is \dot a \propto a^0.5 and consequently the number distribution satisfies dN/dlog a\propto a^0.5. If this formation process produces most hot Jupiters, Kepler should detect several super-eccentric migrating progenitors of hot Jupiters, allowing for a test of high-eccentricity migration scenarios.

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Aristotle Socrates, Boaz Katz, Subo Dong, Scott Tremaine. 2011-10-07. Super-Eccentric Migrating Jupiters. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x%2F750%2F2%2F106

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