The origin and evolution of wide Jupiter Mass Binary Objects in young stellar clusters

Abstract

The recently observed population of 540 free-floating Jupiter-mass objects, including 40 dynamically soft pairs in the Trapezium cluster have raised interesting questions on their formation and evolution. We test various scenarios for the origin and survivability of these free floating Jupiter-mass objects and Jupiter-mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs) in the Trapezium cluster. The numerical calculations are performed by direct N-body integration of the stars and planets in the Trapezium cluster starting with a wide variety of planets in various configurations. We discuss four models: SPP, in which selected stars have two outer orbiting Jupiter-mass planets; SPM, where selected stars are orbited by Jupiter-mass planet-moon pairs; ISF in which JuMBOs form in situ with the stars, and FFC, where we introduce a population of free-floating single Jupiter-mass objects, but no initialized binaries. Models FFC and SPP fail to produce enough JuMBOs. Models SPM can produce sufficient JuMBOs, but requires unusually wide orbits for the planet-moon system around the star. The observed JuMBOs and free-floating Jupiter-mass objects in the Trapezium cluster are best reproduced if they formed in pairs and as free-floaters together with the other stars in a smooth (Plummer) density profile with a virial radius of 0.5pc. A fractal stellar distribution also works, but requires relatively recent formations (>0.2Myr after the other stars formed) or a high (50%) initial binary fraction. This would make the primordial binary fraction of JuMBOs even higher than the already large observation fraction of 8%. The fraction of JuMBOs will continue to drop with time, and the lack of JuMBOs in Upper Scorpius could then result in its higher age, causing more JuMBOs to be ionized. We then also predict that the interstellar density of Jupiter-mass objects (mostly singles with 2% lucky surviving binaries) is 0.05/pc${}^3$.

Accepted for publiation in golden open-access journal SciPost Astronomy, see https://scipost.org/submission/scipost_202312_00003v1/ Software available at: https://github.com/spzwart/JuMBOs.git Simulation data available at: https://zenodo.org/records/10149241

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