Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-3-2022
Publication Title
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume
927
Issue
1
First page number:
1
Last page number:
8
Abstract
Circumbinary gas disks are often observed to be misaligned with the binary orbit, suggesting that planet formation may proceed in a misaligned disk. With n-body simulations, we consider the formation of circumbinary terrestrial planets from a particle disk that is initially misaligned. We find that if terrestrial planets form in this way, in the absence of gas, they can only form close to coplanar or close to polar to the binary orbit. Planets around a circular binary form coplanar while planets around an eccentric binary can form coplanar or polar depending on the initial disk misalignment and the binary eccentricity. The more massive a terrestrial planet is, the more aligned it is (to coplanar or polar) because it has undergone more mergers that lead on average to smaller misalignment angles. Nodal precession of particle disks with very large initial inclinations lead to high mutual inclinations between the particles. This produces high relative velocities between particles that lead to mass ejections that can completely inhibit planet formation. Misaligned terrestrial circumbinary planets may be able to form in the presence of a misaligned circumbinary gas disk that may help to nodally align the particle orbits and maintain the inclination of the planets during their formation.
Keywords
Binary Stars; Extrasolar rocky planets; Planet formation; Exoplanet Formation
Disciplines
Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy
File Format
File Size
957 KB
Language
English
Rights
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Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Childs, A. C.,
Martin, R. G.
(2022).
Misalignment of Terrestrial Circumbinary Planets as an Indicator of Their Formation Mechanism.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 927(1),
1-8.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac574f