Behavior of Apsidal Orientations in Planetary Systems

Abstract

A widely considered characteristic of extra-solar planetary systems has been a seeming tendency for major axes of adjacent orbits to librate in stable configurations. Based on a new catalog of extra-solar planets (Butler et al. 2006) and our numerical integrations, we find that such small amplitude oscillations are actually not common, but in fact quite rare; most pairs of planets' major axes a re consistenet with circulating relative to one another. However, the new result s are consistent with studies that find that two-planet systems tend to lie near a separatrix between libration and circulation. Similarly, in systems of more than two planets, many adjacent orbits lie near a separatrix that divides modes of circulation.

12 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ Letters

References in corpus (4)

• Evidence for Planet-Planet Scattering in Upsilon Andromedae
• The 2:1 resonant exoplanetary system orbiting HD73526
• Could the 55 Cancri Planetary System Really Be in the 3:1 Mean Motion Resonance?
• On the evolution of the resonant planetary system HD128311

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• Apsidal Behavior Among Planetary Orbits: Testing the Planet-Planet Scattering Model
• Secular Evolution of HD 12661: A System Caught at an Unlikely Time
• A dynamical perspective on additional planets in 55 Cancri