paper

Spin-orbit coupling for close-in planets

arXiv:2112.14335 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201936336

Abstract

We study the spin evolution of close-in planets in multi-body systems and present a very general formulation of the spin-orbit problem. This includes a simple way to probe the spin dynamics from the orbital perturbations, a new method for computing forced librations and tidal deformation, and general expressions for the tidal torque and capture probabilities in resonance. We show that planet-planet perturbations can drive the spin of Earth-size planets into asynchronous or chaotic states, even for nearly circular orbits. We apply our results to Mercury and to the KOI-1599 system of two super-Earths in a 3/2 mean motion resonance.

12 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (11)

Cited by in corpus (1)