Detectability of Free Floating Planets in Open Clusters with JWST

Abstract

Recent observations have shown the presence of extra-solar planets in Galactic open stellar clusters, as in the Praesepe (M44). These systems provide a favorable environment for planetary formation due to the high heavy-element content exhibited by the majority of their population. The large stellar density, and corresponding high close-encounter event rate, may induce strong perturbations of planetary orbits with large semimajor axes. Here we present a set of N-body simulations implementing a novel scheme to treat the tidal effects of external stellar perturbers on planetary orbit eccentricity and inclination. By simulating five nearby open clusters we determine the rate of occurrence of bodies extracted from their parent stellar system by quasi-impulsive tidal interactions. We find that the specific free-floating planet production rate (total number of free-floating planets per unit of time, normalized by the total number of stars) is proportional to the stellar density of the cluster, with a constant of proportionality equal to (23 +/- 5)10^-6 pc^3 Myr^-1. For the Pleiades (M45) we predict that about 26% of stars should have lost their planets. This raises the exciting possibility of directly observing these wandering planets with the James Webb Space Telescope in the NIR band. Assuming a surface temperature of the planet of 500 K, a free-floating planet of Jupiter size inside the Pleiades would have a specific flux @4.4 micron of approximately 400 nJy, which would lead to a very clear detection (S/N of order 100) in only one hour of integration.

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters on 4 November 2013

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• The Stellar Populations of Praesepe and Coma Berenices
• Dynamics of Planetary Systems in Star Clusters
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• The Dynamical Fate of Self-Gravitating Disc Fragments After Tidal Downsizing
• Survival Rates of Planets in Open Clusters: the Pleiades, Hyades, and Praesepe clusters
• The origin of free-floating planets
• Did a stellar fly-by shape the planetary system around Pr 0211 in the cluster M 44?
• Mysteries of Capotauro: investigating the puzzling nature of an extreme F356W-dropout
• The impact of the free-floating planet (FFP) mass function on the event rate for the accurate microlensing parallax determination: application to Euclid and Roman parallax observation
• Detailed Abundances of Planet-Hosting Open Clusters. The Praesepe (Beehive) Cluster