Evolution of $\alpha$ Centauri B's protoplanetary disc

Abstract

With hydrodynamical simulations we examine the evolution of a protoplanetary disc around $\alpha$ Centauri B including the effect of the eccentric orbit binary companion $\alpha$ Centauri A. The initially circular orbit disc undergoes two types of eccentricity growth. First, the eccentricity oscillates on the orbital period of the binary, $P_{\mathrm{orb}}$, due to the eccentricity of the binary orbit. Secondly, for a sufficiently small disc aspect ratio, the disc undergoes global forced eccentricity oscillations on a time-scale of around $20P_{\mathrm{orb}}$. These oscillations damp out through viscous dissipation leaving a quasi-steady eccentricity profile for the disc that oscillates only on the binary orbital period. The time-averaged global eccentricity is in the range 0.05-0.1, with no precession in the steady state. The periastrons of the gas particles are aligned to one another. The higher the disc viscosity, the higher the disc eccentricity. With $N$-body simulations we examine the evolution of a disc of planetesimals that forms with the orbital properties of the quasi-steady protoplanetary disc. We find that the average magnitude of the eccentricity of particles increases and their periastrons become misaligned to each other once they decouple from the gas disc. The low planetesimal collision velocity required for planet formation suggests that for planet formation to have occurred in a disc of planetesimals formed from a protoplanetary disc around $\alpha$ Centauri B, said disc's viscosity must be have been small and planet formation must have occurred at orbital radii smaller than about $2.5\mathrm{au}$. Planet formation may be easier with the presence of gas.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (79)

• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• Streaming Instabilities in Protoplanetary Disks
• Modelling Accretion in Protobinary Systems
• SPLASH: An interactive visualisation tool for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations
• Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics
• Particle Stirring in Turbulent Gas Disks: Including Orbital Oscillations
• Phantom: A smoothed particle hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics code for astrophysics
• On the diversity and statistical properties of protostellar discs
• Proxima's orbit around Alpha Centauri
• The tidally induced warping, precession and truncation of accretion discs in binary systems: three-dimensional simulations
• Tearing up the disc: misaligned accretion on to a binary
• On the diffusive propagation of warps in thin accretion discs
• Observational Implications of Precessing Protostellar Discs and Jets
• Ghost in the time series: no planet for Alpha Cen B
• Tidal Truncation of Inclined Circumstellar and Circumbinary Discs in Young Stellar Binaries
• SPH simulations of tidally unstable accretion disks in cataclysmic variables
• Wave-like warp propagation in circumbinary discs I. Analytic theory and numerical simulations
• On the convergence of the critical cooling timescale for the fragmentation of self-gravitating discs
• The Kozai-Lidov Mechanism in Hydrodynamical Disks
• Relative velocities among accreting planetesimals in binary systems: the circumprimary case
• Non-convergence of the critical cooling timescale for fragmentation of self-gravitating discs
• Warp diffusion in accretion discs: a numerical investigation
• Non-linear fluid dynamics of eccentric discs
• Retrograde Accretion and Merging Supermassive Black Holes
• The evolution of a warped disc around a Kerr black hole
• Radial Velocity Detection of Earth-mass Planets in the Presence of Activity Noise: The Case of Alpha Centauri Bb
• Giant Outbursts in Be/X-ray Binaries
• A comparison between grid and particle methods on the statistics of driven, supersonic, isothermal turbulence
• Misaligned Protoplanetary Disks in a Young Binary System
• Planetesimal and gas dynamics in binaries
• Simulations of eccentric disks in close binary systems
• The GENGA Code: Gravitational Encounters in N-body simulations with GPU Acceleration
• The Stability of Planets in the Alpha Centauri system
• Circumstellar disks in binary star systems
• Planetary formation in the Gamma-Cephei system
• Tidal Torques on Misaligned Disks in Binary Systems
• Gas flow and accretion via spiral streamers and circumstellar disks in a young binary protostar
• Planet Formation in Binary Stars: The case of Gamma Cephei
• Planet formation in Alpha Centauri A revisited: not so accretion-friendly after all
• On the Feeding Zone of Planetesimal Formation by the Streaming Instability
• Stable counteralignment of a circumbinary disc
• Formation and Detectability of Terrestrial Planets Around Alpha Centauri B
• Planetesimal Accretion in Binary Systems: Could Planets Form Around Alpha Centauri B ?
• Planet formation in stellar binaries II: overcoming the fragmentation barrier in alpha Centauri and gamma Cephei-like systems
• Planet formation in binaries: dynamics of planetesimals perturbed by the eccentric protoplanetary disk and the secondary
• On the eccentricity of self-gravitating circumstellar disks in eccentric binary systems
• Planet formation in stellar binaries I: planetesimal dynamics in massive protoplanetary disks
• Planet formation in the habitable zone of alpha Centauri B
• Planetesimal collisions in binary systems
• The Kozai-Lidov Mechanism in Hydrodynamical Disks. II. Effects of binary and disk parameters
• Planet formation in small separation binaries: not so excited after all
• Long-Term Stability of Planets in the $\alpha$ Centauri System
• Parallax and masses of alpha Centauri revisited
• Formation of terrestrial planets in close binary systems: the case of Alpha Centauri A
• Hubble Space Telescope search for the transit of the Earth-mass exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb
• Local and global dynamics of eccentric astrophysical discs
• Dynamical Stability of Terrestrial Planets in the Binary α Centauri System
• ALMA observations of a misaligned binary protoplanetary disk system in Orion
• Planetesimal Accretion in Binary Systems: The Effects of Gas Dissipation
• Planetesimal Accretion in Binary Systems: Role of the Companion's Orbital Inclination
• The Kozai-Lidov Mechanism in Hydrodynamical Disks. III. Effects of Disk Mass and Self-Gravity
• Eccentricity of radiative discs in close binary-star systems
• Misaligned accretion disc formation via Kozai-Lidov oscillations
• Planet Detectability in the Alpha Centauri System
• Formation of the polar debris disc around 99 Herculis
• Three-dimensional modeling of radiative disks in binaries
• The Effect of Planets Beyond the Ice Line on the Accretion of Volatiles by Habitable-Zone Rocky Planets
• Long-Term Stability of Tightly Packed Multi-Planet Systems in Prograde, Coplanar, Circumstellar Orbits within the $\alpha$ Centauri AB System
• Detection of Alpha Centauri at radio wavelengths: chromospheric emission and search for star-planet interaction
• Secular Dynamics of S-type Planetary Orbits in Binary Star Systems: Applicability Domains of First- and Second-Order Theories
• The Mt John University Observatory Search For Earth-mass Planets In The Habitable Zone Of Alpha Centauri
• Fragmentation of Kozai-Lidov Disks
• Secular Orbit Evolution in Systems with a Strong External Perturber - A Simple and Accurate Model
• Searching for Planets Orbiting Alpha Centauri A with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Prospects of detecting the polarimetric signature of the Earth-mass planet alpha Centauri B b with SPHERE / ZIMPOL
• Long-Term Stability of Planets in the $\alpha$ Centauri System, II: Forced Eccentricities
• Multi-planet disc interactions in binary systems
• Searching for Earth-mass planets around $\alpha$ Centauri: precise radial velocities from contaminated spectra
• Effects of Proxima Centauri on Planet Formation in Alpha Centauri

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Planet formation in stellar binaries: Global simulations of planetesimal growth
• Disks in close binary stars: γ-Cephei revisited
• Milankovitch Cycles for a Circumstellar Earth-analog within $\alpha$ Centauri-like Binaries
• An eccentric wave in the circumstellar disc of the Be/X-ray binary X Persei
• Disc breaking through forced eccentricity growth
• Gas and dust dynamics in $\gamma$ Cephei-type disks