Orbital Migration through Atmospheric Mass Loss

Document detail

ID

oai:arXiv.org:2411.18960

Topic

Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary...

Author

Hanf, Benjamin Kincaid, Will Schlichting, Hilke Cappiello, Livan Tamayo, Daniel

Year

2024

listing date

12/4/2024

Keywords

atmospheric loss mass planet

Metrics

Abstract

Atmospheric mass loss is thought to have strongly shaped the sample of close-in exoplanets.

These atmospheres should be lost isotropically, leading to no net migration on the planetary orbit.

However, strong stellar winds can funnel the escaping atmosphere into a tail trailing the planet.

We derive a simple kinematic model of the gravitational interaction between the planet and this anisotropic wind, and derive expressions for the expected migration of the planet.

Over the expected range of parameters, we find typical migrations of a few tenths to a few percent inward.

We argue that this modest migration may be observable for planet pairs near mean motion resonances, which would provide an independent observational constraint on atmospheric mass loss models.

;Comment: Accepted to the Astronomical Journal on 18 Nov. 2024

Hanf, Benjamin,Kincaid, Will,Schlichting, Hilke,Cappiello, Livan,Tamayo, Daniel, 2024, Orbital Migration through Atmospheric Mass Loss