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The Cumulative Effect of Stellar Encounters on Multi-Planet Systems in Star Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2014

Wei Hao  and
M. B. N. Kouwenhoven
Wei Hao
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Yi He Yuan Lu 5, Haidian Qu, Beijing 100871, P.R. China email: elvis@MPA-Garching.MPG.DE Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1 85741 Garching, Germany
M. B. N. Kouwenhoven
Affiliation:
Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA), Peking University, Yi He Yuan Lu 5, Haidian Qu, Beijing 100871, P.R. China email: kouwenhoven@pku.edu.cn
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Abstract

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Distant stellar encouters can substantially affect the dynamical evolution of existing stellar and planetary systems (e.g., Malmberg et al. 2007; Spurzem et al. 2009). Although planets with small orbital periods are not directly affected by encountering stars, the secular evolution of a perturbed system may result in the ejection of the innermost planets, or physical collisions between the innermost planets and the host star, hundreds of thousands of years after a weak encounter with a neighboring star occurs. Here we present the results of our study on the cumulative effect of distant stellar encounters on multi-planet systems in star clusters, and how these results depend on the properties of the star cluster in which a planetary system is born (for details we refer to Hao & Kouwenhoven, in prep.). With our simulations we explain the scarcity of exoplanets in star clusters, not only for those in wide orbits (affected by stellar encounters), but also in close orbits (affected by the secular evolution of the system following an encounter).

Keywords

Planetary systems — open clusters and associations: general
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 8 , Symposium S293: Formation, Detection, and Characterization of Extrasolar Habitable Planets , August 2012 , pp. 171 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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