Successive common envelope events from multiple planets

Abstract

Many stars harbour multi-planet systems. As these stars expand late in their evolutions, the innermost planet may be engulfed, leading to a common envelope (CE) event. Even if this is insufficient to eject the envelope, it may expand the star further, causing additional CE events, with the last one unbinding what remains of the envelope. This multi-planet CE scenario may have broad implications for stellar and planetary evolution across a range of systems. We develop a simplified version and show that it may be able to explain the recently observed planet WD 1856 b.

5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (11)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation
• Low-Mass Binary Induced Outflows from Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• A Giant Planet Candidate Transiting a White Dwarf
• Accretion of a giant planet onto a white dwarf
• Oxygen fugacities of extrasolar rocks: Evidence for an Earth-like geochemistry of exoplanets
• Episodic mass ejections from common-envelope objects
• WD 1856 b: a close giant planet around a white dwarf that could have survived a common-envelope phase
• The lifetimes of planetary debris discs around white dwarfs
• Convection and Spin-Up During Common Envelope Evolution: The Formation of Short-Period Double White Dwarfs
• Common Envelope Evolution on the Asymptotic Giant Branch: Unbinding within a Decade?
• Dynamical evolution of two-planet systems and its connection with white dwarf atmospheric pollution