Stability Limits of Circumbinary Planets: Is There a Pile-up in the Kepler CBPs?

The stability limit for circumbinary planets (CBPs) is not well defined and can depend on initial parameters defining either the planetary orbit and/or the inner binary orbit. We expand on the work of Holman & Wiegert (1999) to develop numerical tools for quick, easy, and accurate determination...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2018-04, Vol.856 (2), p.150
Main Authors: Quarles, B., Satyal, S., Kostov, V., Kaib, N., Haghighipour, N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
binaries: eclipsing
Computer simulation
Extrasolar planets
Interpolation
methods: numerical
Planet detection
Planetary orbits
Planets
planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability
Satellites
Stability
Transit
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Summary:The stability limit for circumbinary planets (CBPs) is not well defined and can depend on initial parameters defining either the planetary orbit and/or the inner binary orbit. We expand on the work of Holman & Wiegert (1999) to develop numerical tools for quick, easy, and accurate determination of the stability limit. The results of our simulations, as well as our numerical tools, are available to the community through Zenodo and GitHub, respectively. We employ a grid interpolation method based on ∼150 million full N-body simulations of initially circular, coplanar systems and compare to the nine known Kepler CBP systems. Using a formalism from planet packing studies, we find that 55% of the Kepler CBP systems allow for an additional equal-mass planet to potentially exist on an interior orbit relative to the observed planet. Therefore, we do not find strong evidence for a pile-up in the Kepler CBP systems and more detections are needed to adequately characterize the formation mechanisms for the CBP population. Observations from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite are expected to substantially increase the number of detections using the unique geometry of CBP systems, where multiple transits can occur during a single conjunction.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/aab264