Simulations of two-planet systems through all phases of stellar evolution: implications for the instability boundary and white dwarf pollution

Abstract

Exoplanets have been observed at many stages of their host star's life, including the main sequence (MS), subgiant and red giant branch stages. Also, polluted white dwarfs (WDs) likely represent dynamically active systems at late times. Here, we perform 3-body simulations which include realistic post-MS stellar mass loss and span the entire lifetime of exosystems with two massive planets, from the endpoint of formation to several Gyr into the WD phase of the host star. We find that both MS and WD systems experience ejections and star-planet collisions (Lagrange instability) even if the planet-planet separation well-exceeds the analytical orbit-crossing (Hill instability) boundary. Consequently, MS-stable planets do not need to be closely-packed to experience instability during the WD phase. This instability may pollute the WD directly through collisions, or, more likely, indirectly through increased scattering of smaller bodies such as asteroids or comets. Our simulations show that this instability occurs predominately between tens of Myr to a few Gyrs of WD cooling.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 24 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (30)

• A gaseous metal disk around a white dwarf
• The Chemical Composition of an Extrasolar Minor Planet
• Foretellings of Ragnarök: World-engulfing Asymptotic Giants and the Inheritance of White Dwarfs
• Pollution of single white dwarfs by accretion of many small asteroids
• The sdB+M Eclipsing System HW Virginis and its Circumbinary Planets
• Unexpectedly large mass loss during the thermal pulse cycle of the red giant R Sculptoris!
• On the Orbits of Low-mass Companions to White Dwarfs and the Fates of the Known Exoplanets
• Stability Limits in Extra-solar Planetary Systems
• Planet Engulfment by ~1.5-3 Solar-Mass Red Giants
• SDSSJ104341.53+085558.2: A second white dwarf with a gaseous debris disc
• Scattering of small bodies by planets: a potential origin for exozodiacal dust ?
• Multi-Planet Destabilisation and Escape in Post-Main Sequence Systems
• Scars of Intense Accretion Episodes at Metal-Rich White Dwarfs
• Inner edges of compact debris disks around metal-rich white dwarfs
• A Double Planetary System around the Evolved Intermediate-Mass Star HD 4732
• BD+48 740 - Li overabundant giant star with a planet. A case of recent engulfment?
• A Giant Planet Around a Metal-poor Star of Extragalactic Origin
• Substellar Companions to Seven Evolved Intermediate-Mass Stars
• Stability criteria for hierarchical triple systems
• Jupiter will become a hot Jupiter: Consequences of Post-Main-Sequence Stellar Evolution on Gas Giant Planets
• Exoplanets Beyond the Solar Neighbourhood: Galactic Tidal Perturbations
• Planet-Mediated Precision-Reconstruction of the Evolution of the Cataclysmic Variable HU Aquarius
• Resonances Required: Dynamical Analysis of the 24 Sex and HD 200964 Planetary Systems
• Secular Evolution of HD 12661: A System Caught at an Unlikely Time
• Planetary companions orbiting M giants HD 208527 and HD 220074
• Disrupting Primordial Planet Signatures: The Close Encounter of Two Single-Planet Exosystems in the Galactic Disc
• Mean Motion Resonances in Exoplanet Systems: An Investigation Into Nodding Behavior
• Planetary Orbital Equations in Externally-Perturbed Systems: Position and Velocity-Dependent Forces
• Detection of an exoplanet around the evolved K giant HD 66141
• Precision Astrometry of the Exoplanet Host Candidate GD 66

Cited by in corpus (124)

• The Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Effect and Its Applications
• The frequency of planetary debris around young white dwarfs
• Circumstellar Debris and Pollution at White Dwarf Stars
• Hot Jupiters and Cool Stars
• Formation of planetary debris discs around white dwarfs I: Tidal disruption of an extremely eccentric asteroid
• Eccentric Planets and Stellar Evolution as a Cause of Polluted White Dwarfs
• Elemental Compositions of Two Extrasolar Rocky Planetesimals
• Cool DZ white dwarfs II: Compositions and evolution of old remnant planetary systems
• The frequency and infrared brightness of circumstellar discs at white dwarfs
• Long-term evolution of three-planet systems to the post-Main Sequence and beyond
• Stochastic accretion of planetesimals onto white dwarfs: constraints on the mass distribution of accreted material from atmospheric pollution
• Likely detection of water-rich asteroid debris in a metal-polluted white dwarf
• The stability and fates of hierarchical two-planet systems
• Unstable low-mass planetary systems as drivers of white dwarf pollution
• Doppler-imaging of the planetary debris disc at the white dwarf SDSS J122859.93+104032.9
• Detectable close-in planets around white dwarfs through late unpacking
• High-speed photometry of the disintegrating planetesimals at WD1145+017: evidence for rapid dynamical evolution
• The unbiased frequency of planetary signatures around single and binary white dwarfs using $Spitzer$ and $Hubble$
• Planetary systems and real planetary nebulae from planet destruction near white dwarfs
• An Exoplanet's Response to Anisotropic Stellar Mass-Loss During Birth and Death
• Hydrogen delivery onto white dwarfs from remnant exo-Oort cloud comets
• Planetary engulfment as a trigger for white dwarf pollution
• The formation of the solar system
• Full-lifetime simulations of multiple unequal-mass planets across all phases of stellar evolution
• Throwing Icebergs at White Dwarfs
• A wide binary trigger for white dwarf pollution
• Numerical Simulations of Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• Explaining the variability of WD 1145+017 with simulations of asteroid tidal disruption
• Post-main-sequence debris from rotation-induced YORP break-up of small bodies
• Detecting industrial pollution in the atmospheres of earth-like exoplanets
• The orbital evolution of asteroids, pebbles and planets from giant branch stellar radiation and winds
• Liberating exomoons in white dwarf planetary systems
• The Drop during Less than 300 days of a Dusty White Dwarf's Infrared Luminosity
• The Great Escape III: Placing post-main-sequence evolution of planetary and binary systems in a Galactic context
• Are exoplanetesimals differentiated?
• Dynamical Stability of Imaged Planetary Systems in Formation: Application to HL Tau
• The Occurrence of Wide-Orbit Planets in Binary Star Systems
• The incidence of magnetic fields in cool DZ white dwarfs
• Deposition of steeply infalling debris around white dwarf stars
• Giant Planets, Tiny Stars: Producing Short-Period Planets around White Dwarfs with the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism
• Main-sequence progenitor configurations of the NN Ser candidate circumbinary planetary system are dynamically unstable
• A simple scaling for the minimum instability time-scale of two widely spaced planets
• Infrared-excess white dwarfs in the Gaia 100 pc sample
• The Fate of Exomoons in White Dwarf Planetary Systems
• Planetary Systems Around White Dwarfs
• Numerical Simulations of Gaseous Disks Generated from Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• Solar Abundances of Rock Forming Elements, Extreme Oxygen and Hydrogen in a Young Polluted White Dwarf
• One of the closest exoplanet pairs to the 3:2 Mean Motion Resonance: K2-19b \& c
• TESS Asteroseismology of the known red-giant host stars HD 212771 and HD 203949
• Eating Planets for Lunch and Dinner: Signatures of Planet Consumption by Evolving Stars
• Kozai Migration Naturally Explains the White Dwarf Planet WD1856b
• Sublimation-induced orbital perturbations of extrasolar active asteroids and comets: application to white dwarf systems
• Dusty WDs in the $WISE$ All Sky Survey $\cap$ SDSS
• The fates of Solar system analogues with one additional distant planet
• Speeding past planets? Asteroids radiatively propelled by giant branch Yarkovsky effects
• Linking long-term planetary $N$-body simulations with periodic orbits: application to white dwarf pollution
• Formation and evolution of the two 4/3 resonant giants planets in HD 200946
• Mass and eccentricity constraints on the planetary debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017
• No evidence for a strong decrease of planetesimal accretion in old white dwarfs
• The lifetimes of planetary debris discs around white dwarfs
• Do instabilities in high-multiplicity systems explain the existence of close-in white dwarf planets?
• Tidal circularization of gaseous planets orbiting white dwarfs
• How Jupiters save or destroy inner Neptunes around evolved stars
• Scattering of exocomets by a planet chain: exozodi levels and the delivery of cometary material to inner planets
• Understanding the origin of white dwarf atmospheric pollution by dynamical simulations based on detected three-planet systems
• Prospects for detecting decreasing exoplanet frequency with main sequence age using PLATO
• Binary star influence on post-main-sequence multi-planet stability
• The Detection of Dust around NN Ser
• Developing Ecospheres on Transiently Habitable Planets: The Genesis Project
• Orbital relaxation and excitation of planets tidally interacting with white dwarfs
• Accretion of tidally disrupted asteroids onto white dwarfs: direct accretion versus disk processing
• ALMA and Herschel Observations of the Prototype Dusty and Polluted White Dwarf G29-38
• The dynamical history of the evaporating or disrupted ice giant planet around white dwarf WD J0914+1914
• Effects of non-Kozai mutual inclinations on two-planet system stability through all phases of stellar evolution
• Importance of fingering convection for accreting white dwarfs in the framework of full evolutionary calculations: the case of the hydrogen-rich white dwarfs GD133 and G29-38
• A New Generation of Cool White Dwarf Atmosphere Models. III. WD J2356$-$209: Accretion of a Planetesimal with an Unusual Composition
• Driving white dwarf metal pollution through unstable eccentric periodic orbits
• Dynamical evolution of two-planet systems and its connection with white dwarf atmospheric pollution
• An Extreme-AO Search for Giant Planets around a White Dwarf --VLT/SPHERE performance on a faint target GD 50
• Dynamical mass and multiplicity constraints on co-orbital bodies around stars
• Hot Jupiter and ultra-cold Saturn formation in dense star clusters
• Magnetospherically-trapped dust and a possible model for the unusual transits at WD 1145+017
• How Sublimation Delays the Onset of Dusty Debris Disk Formation Around White Dwarf Stars
• TOI-1259Ab -- a gas giant planet with 2.7% deep transits and a bound white dwarf companion
• On the role of resonances in polluting white dwarfs by asteroids
• Survivability of radio-loud planetary cores orbiting white dwarfs
• Metal pollution of the solar white dwarf by solar system small bodies
• Linking the formation and fate of exo-Kuiper belts within solar system analogues
• Can Gaia find planets around white dwarfs?
• The critical binary star separation for a planetary system origin of white dwarf pollution
• The Influence of Tidal Heating on the Habitability of Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
• Constraining planet formation around 6$M_{\odot }$-8$M_{\odot }$ stars
• Rapid Formation of Exoplanetesimals Revealed by White Dwarfs
• Evidence of Rocky Planetesimals Orbiting Two Hyades Stars
• The smallest planetary drivers of white dwarf pollution
• Stellar Evolution and Tidal Dissipation in REBOUNDx
• White Dwarfs with Infrared Excess from LAMOST Data Release 5
• The white dwarf planet WD J0914+1914 b: barricading potential rocky pollutants?
• TESS Giants Transiting Giants III: An eccentric warm Jupiter supports a period-eccentricity relation for giant planets transiting evolved stars
• Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017
• A power law decay evolution scenario for polluted single white dwarfs
• Orphaned Exomoons: Tidal Detachment and Evaporation Following an Exoplanet-Star Collision
• Close-in planets around giant stars. Lack of hot-Jupiters and prevalence of multi-planetary systems
• A Young White Dwarf with an Infrared Excess
• The unstable fate of the planet orbiting the A-star in the HD 131399 triple stellar system
• Disentangling the parameter space: The role of planet multiplicity in triggering dynamical instabilities on planetary systems around white dwarfs
• The post-main-sequence fate of the HR 8799 planetary system
• Generating metal-polluting debris in white dwarf planetary systems from small-impact crater ejecta
• Atmospheric Temperature Inversions and He I 5876 Core Profile Structure in White Dwarfs
• New simulations of accreting DA white dwarfs: inferring accretion rates from the surface contamination
• The DECam Minute Cadence Survey I
• The Fate of Oceans on First-Generation Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
• High-resolution resonant portraits of a single-planet white dwarf system
• Precise determination of stellar parameters of the ZZ Ceti and DAZ white dwarf GD 133 through asteroseismology
• Discovery and characterisation of two Neptune-mass planets orbiting HD 212729 with TESS
• Short-term stability of particles in the WD J0914+1914 white dwarf planetary system
• Transiting Planets with LSST IV: Detecting Planets around White Dwarfs
• Resonant capture of multiple planet systems under dissipation and stable orbital configurations
• Origin of Ca II emission around polluted white dwarfs
• Partial disruption of a planet around a white dwarf: the effect of perturbation from the remnant planet on the accretion
• TOI-3362b: A Proto-Hot Jupiter Undergoing High-Eccentricity Tidal Migration
• Three-body Mean Motion Resonance Chains as a Delivery Mechanism for White Dwarf Pollution
• Planets or asteroids? A geochemical method to constrain the masses of White Dwarf pollutants
• General Relativity Can Prevent a Runaway Greenhouse on Potentially Habitable Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs