Long-Term Stability of Planets in the $\alpha$ Centauri System, II: Forced Eccentricities

Abstract

We extend our study of the extent of the regions within the $\alpha$ Centauri AB star system where small planets are able to orbit for billion-year timescales (Quarles & Lissauer 2016, AJ 151, 111) to investigate the effects of minimizing the forced eccentricity of initial trajectories. We find that initially prograde, circumstellar orbits require a piecewise quadratic function to accurately approximate forced eccentricity as a function of semimajor axis, but retrograde orbits can be modeled using a linear function. Circumbinary orbits in the $\alpha$ Centauri AB system are less affected by the forced eccentricity. {Planets on circumstellar orbits that begin with eccentricity vectors near their forced values are generally stable, up to $\sim$$10^9$ yr, out to a larger semimajor axis than are planets beginning on circular orbits. The amount by which the region of stability expands is much larger for retrograde orbits than it is for prograde orbits. The location of the stability boundary for two planet systems on prograde, circular orbits is much more sensitive to the initial eccentricity state than it is for analogous single planet systems.

arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables; Accepted in Astronomical Journal

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• Precision Millimeter Astrometry of the $\alpha$ Centauri AB System
• Implications of Captured Interstellar Objects for Panspermia and Extraterrestrial Life
• Long-Term Stability of Tightly Packed Multi-Planet Systems in Prograde, Coplanar, Circumstellar Orbits within the $\alpha$ Centauri AB System
• Searching for Planets Orbiting Alpha Centauri A with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Exomoons in Systems with a Strong Perturber: Applications to $\alpha$ Cen AB
• Obliquity Evolution of Circumstellar Planets in Sun-like Stellar Binaries
• Worlds Next Door: A Candidate Giant Planet Imaged in the Habitable Zone of $\alpha$ Cen A. I. Observations, Orbital and Physical Properties, and Exozodi Upper Limits
• Milankovitch Cycles for a Circumstellar Earth-analog within $\alpha$ Centauri-like Binaries
• Evolution of $\alpha$ Centauri B's protoplanetary disc
• Revised Properties and Dynamical History for the HD 17156 System
• Disc breaking through forced eccentricity growth