Long period planets from dynamical relaxation

Abstract

Recent imaging campaigns indicate the likely existence of massive planets (~ 1-10 MJ) on ~1000 year orbits about a few percent of stars. Such objects are not easily explained in most current planet formation models. In this Letter we use ensembles of 100 N-body simulations to evaluate the potential for planet scattering during relaxation of dynamically active systems to explain the population of giant planets with projected separations up to a few 100 AU. We find that such a mechanism could indeed be at play, and that statistical samples of long period planets could place interesting constraints on early stage planet formation scenarios. Results from direct imaging and microlensing surveys are complementary probes of this dynamical relaxation process.

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, this is final version

References in corpus (28)

• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Towards a Deterministic Model of Planetary Formation I: a Desert in the Mass and Semi Major Axis Distributions of Extra Solar Planets
• Dynamical Outcomes of Planet-Planet Scattering
• Optical Images of an Exosolar Planet 25 Light Years from Earth
• Dynamical Origin of Extrasolar Planet Eccentricity Distribution
• Origins of Eccentric Extrasolar Planets: Testing the Planet-Planet Scattering Model
• Can giant planets form by direct gravitational instability?
• Evidence for a co-moving sub-stellar companion of GQ Lup
• Direct Imaging and Spectroscopy of a Planetary Mass Candidate Companion to a Young Solar Analog
• Planet formation and migration
• OGLE-2005-BLG-071Lb, the Most Massive M-Dwarf Planetary Companion?
• A search for hot massive extrasolar planets around nearby young stars with the adaptive optics system NACO
• The Planetary Mass Companion 2MASS1207-3932 B: Temperature, Mass and Evidence for an Edge-On Disk
• Protostellar Disks: Formation, Fragmentation, and the Brown Dwarf Desert
• Migration of extrasolar planets to large orbital radii
• Gas disks to gas giants: Simulating the birth of planetary systems
• Migration and Dynamical Relaxation in Crowded Systems of Giant Planets
• A novel L-band imaging search for giant planets in the Tucana and Beta Pictoris moving groups
• On The Origins Of Eccentric Close-in Planets
• Dynamical Relaxation and Massive Extrasolar Planets
• Mean motion resonances from planet-planet scattering
• Constraints on Extrasolar Planet Populations from VLT NACO/SDI and MMT SDI and Direct Adaptive Optics Imaging Surveys: Giant Planets are Rare at Large Separations
• The Solar-System-Scale Disk Around AB Aurigae
• The Eccentricity-Mass Distribution of Exoplanets: Signatures of Different Formation Mechanisms?
• From mean-motion resonances to scattered planets: Producing the Solar System, eccentric exoplanets and Late Heavy Bombardments
• Effects of Secular Interactions in Extrasolar Planetary Systems
• Microlensing Searches for Planets: Results and Future Prospects
• The Origins of the Substellar Companion to GQ Lup

Cited by in corpus (37)

• Resolved Images of Large Cavities in Protoplanetary Transition Disks
• The effects of fly-bys on planetary systems
• Transitional Disks as Signposts of Young, Multiplanet Systems
• The Formation Mechanism of Gas Giants on Wide Orbits
• The physical properties of extrasolar planets
• Population-Level Eccentricity Distributions of Imaged Exoplanets and Brown Dwarf Companions: Dynamical Evidence for Distinct Formation Channels
• Planet-planet scattering in planetesimal disks II: Predictions for outer extrasolar planetary systems
• orbitize!: A Comprehensive Orbit-fitting Software Package for the High-contrast Imaging Community
• The Directly Imaged Planet around the Young Solar Analog 1RXS J160929.1-210524: Confirmation of Common Proper Motion, Temperature and Mass
• Stability of the directly imaged multiplanet system HR 8799: resonance and masses
• Formation of giant planets and brown dwarfs on wide orbits
• Formation, Survival, and Detectability of Planets Beyond 100 AU
• Confirmation of the planet around HD 95086 by direct imaging
• Long range outward migration of giant planets, with application to Fomalhaut b
• A Disk Around the Planetary-Mass Companion GSC 06214-00210 b: Clues About the Formation of Gas Giants on Wide Orbits
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of Young Planetary-Mass Companions on Wide Orbits
• Discovery of a ~23 Mjup Brown Dwarf Orbiting ~700 AU from the Massive Star HIP 78530 in Upper Scorpius
• Observational Constraints on Companions inside of 10 AU in the HR 8799 Planetary System
• Two new free-floating or wide-orbit planets from microlensing
• Is the HR 8799 extrasolar system destined for planetary scattering?
• Architectures of Planetary Systems and Implications for their Formation
• Discovery of Seven Companions to Intermediate Mass Stars with Extreme Mass Ratios in the Scorpius-Centaurus Association
• ALMA Measurements of Circumstellar Material in the GQ Lup System
• Estimates of the Planet Yield from Ground-Based High-Contrast Imaging Observations as a Function of Stellar Mass
• Is there an exoplanet in the Solar System?
• Exoplanets Beyond the Solar Neighbourhood: Galactic Tidal Perturbations
• Searching for Scatterers: High-Contrast Imaging of Young Stars Hosting Wide-Separation Planetary-Mass Companions
• A Search for Wide Companions to the Extrasolar Planetary System HR 8799
• Characterizing the protolunar disk of the accreting companion GQ Lupi B
• The Lyot Project Direct Imaging Survey of Substellar Companions: Statistical Analysis and Information from Nondetections
• MMT/AO 5 micron Imaging Constraints on the Existence of Giant Planets Orbiting Fomalhaut at ~13-40 AU
• A debris disk under the influence of a wide planetary mass companion: The system of HD106906
• The Invisible Majority? Evolution and Detection of Outer Planetary Systems without Gas Giants
• alpha-Deep Probabilistic Inference (alpha-DPI): efficient uncertainty quantification from exoplanet astrometry to black hole feature extraction
• Formation of multiple low mass stars, brown dwarfs and planemos via gravitational collapse
• Zero Age Planetary Orbit of Gas Giant Planets Revisited: Reinforcement of the Link with Stellar Metallicity
• 14 Her: a likely case of planet-planet scattering