THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE υ ANDROMEDAE PLANETARY SYSTEM
Creators
- 1. Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1580 (United States)
- 2. Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 (United States)
Description
The υ Andromedae system is the first exoplanetary system to have the relative inclination of two planets' orbital planes directly measured, and therefore offers our first window into the three-dimensional configurations of planetary systems. We present, for the first time, full three-dimensional, dynamically stable configurations for the three planets of the system consistent with all observational constraints. While the outer two planets, c and d, are inclined by ∼30°, the inner planet's orbital plane has not been detected. We use N-body simulations to search for stable three-planet configurations that are consistent with the combined radial velocity and astrometric solution. We find that only 10 trials out of 1000 are robustly stable on 100 Myr timescales, or ∼8 billion orbits of planet b. Planet b's orbit must lie near the invariable plane of planets c and d, but can be either prograde or retrograde. These solutions predict that b's mass is in the range of 2-9 M Jup and has an inclination angle from the sky plane of less than 25°. Combined with brightness variations in the combined star/planet light curve (phase curve), our results imply that planet b's radius is ∼1.8 R Jup, relatively large for a planet of its age. However, the eccentricity of b in several of our stable solutions reaches >0.1, generating upward of 1019 W in the interior of the planet via tidal dissipation, possibly inflating the radius to an amount consistent with phase curve observations
Availability note (English)
Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/798/1/46Additional details
Identifiers
Publishing Information
- Journal Title
- Astrophysical Journal
- Journal Volume
- 798
- Journal Issue
- 1
- Journal Page Range
- [14 p.]
- ISSN
- 0004-637X
- CODEN
- ASJOAB
INIS
- Country of Publication
- United States
- Country of Input or Organization
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- INIS RN
- 46070063
- Subject category
- S79: ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY;
- Descriptors DEI
- BRIGHTNESS; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; DIAGRAMS; GALAXIES; INCLINATION; MASS; MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS; ORBITS; PLANETS; RADIAL VELOCITY; SATELLITES; STARS; THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS; VISIBLE RADIATION
- Descriptors DEC
- ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION; INFORMATION; OPTICAL PROPERTIES; PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; RADIATIONS; SIMULATION; VELOCITY