PLANETARY CHAOTIC ZONE CLEARING: DESTINATIONS AND TIMESCALES
- Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
We investigate the orbital evolution of particles in a planet's chaotic zone to determine their final destinations and their timescales of clearing. There are four possible final states of chaotic particles: collision with the planet, collision with the star, escape, or bounded but non-collision orbits. In our investigations, within the framework of the planar circular restricted three body problem for planet-star mass ratio μ in the range 10{sup –9} to 10{sup –1.5}, we find no particles hitting the star. The relative frequencies of escape and collision with the planet are not scale-free, as they depend upon the size of the planet. For planet radius R{sub p} ≥ 0.001 R{sub H} where R{sub H} is the planet's Hill radius, we find that most chaotic zone particles collide with the planet for μ ≲ 10{sup –5}; particle scattering to large distances is significant only for higher mass planets. For fixed ratio R{sub p} /R{sub H} , the particle clearing timescale, T {sub cl}, has a broken power-law dependence on μ. A shallower power law, T {sub cl} ∼ μ{sup –1/3}, prevails at small μ where particles are cleared primarily by collisions with the planet; a steeper power law, T {sub cl} ∼ μ{sup –3/2}, prevails at larger μ where scattering dominates the particle loss. In the limit of vanishing planet radius, we find T {sub cl} ≈ 0.024 μ{sup –3/2}. The interior and exterior boundaries of the annular zone in which chaotic particles are cleared are increasingly asymmetric about the planet's orbit for larger planet masses; the inner boundary coincides well with the classical first order resonance overlap zone, Δa {sub cl,} {sub int} ≅ 1.2 μ{sup 0.28} a{sub p} ; the outer boundary is better described by Δa {sub cl,} {sub ext} ≅ 1.7 μ{sup 0.31} a{sub p} , where a{sub p} is the planet-star separation.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364530
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 799, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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