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Title: ON THE FORMATION OF HOT JUPITERS IN STELLAR BINARIES

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal Letters
 [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Institute for Theory and Computation, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
  2. Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 (United States)

We study the production of hot Jupiters (HJs) in stellar binaries. We show that the 'eccentric Kozai-Lidov' (EKL) mechanism can play a key role in the dynamical evolution of a star-planet-star triple system. We run a large set of Monte Carlo simulations including the secular evolution of the orbits, general relativistic precession, and tides, and we determine the semimajor axis, eccentricity, inclination, and spin-orbit angle distributions of the HJs that are produced. We explore the effect of different tidal friction parameters on the results. We find that the efficiency of forming HJs when taking the EKL mechanism into account is higher then previously estimated. Accounting for the frequency of stellar binaries, we find that this production mechanism can account for about 30% of the observed HJ population. Current observations of spin-orbit angles are consistent with this mechanism producing {approx}30% of all HJs, and up to 100% of the misaligned systems. Based on the properties of binaries without an HJ in our simulations, we predict the existence of many Jupiter-like planets with moderately eccentric and inclined orbits and semimajor axes of several AU.

OSTI ID:
22047636
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 754, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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