skip to main content


Title: Cool Jupiters greatly outnumber their toasty siblings: occurrence rates from the Anglo-Australian Planet Search
ABSTRACT

Our understanding of planetary systems different to our own has grown dramatically in the past 30 yr. However, our efforts to ascertain the degree to which the Solar system is abnormal or unique have been hindered by the observational biases inherent to the methods that have yielded the greatest exoplanet hauls. On the basis of such surveys, one might consider our planetary system highly unusual – but the reality is that we are only now beginning to uncover the true picture. In this work, we use the full 18-yr archive of data from the Anglo-Australian Planet Search to examine the abundance of ‘cool Jupiters’ – analogues to the Solar system’s giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. We find that such planets are intrinsically far more common through the cosmos than their siblings, the hot Jupiters. We find that the occurrence rate of such ‘cool Jupiters’ is $6.73^{+2.09}_{-1.13}$ per cent, almost an order of magnitude higher than the occurrence of hot Jupiters (at $0.84^{+0.70}_{-0.20}$ per cent). We also find that the occurrence rate of giant planets is essentially constant beyond orbital distances of ∼1 au. Our results reinforce the importance of legacy radial velocity surveys for the understanding of the Solar system’s place in the cosmos.

 
more » « less
NSF-PAR ID:
10129389
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Oxford University Press
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume:
492
Issue:
1
ISSN:
0035-8711
Page Range / eLocation ID:
p. 377-383
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ABSTRACT

    In this work, we present the discovery and confirmation of two hot Jupiters orbiting red giant stars, TOI-4377 b and TOI-4551 b, observed by Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in the Southern ecliptic hemisphere and later followed-up with radial-velocity (RV) observations. For TOI-4377 b, we report a mass of $0.957^{+0.089}_{-0.087} \ M_\mathrm{J}$ and a inflated radius of 1.348 ± 0.081 RJ orbiting an evolved intermediate-mass star (1.36 M⊙ and 3.52 R⊙; TIC 394918211) on a period of of 4.378 d. For TOI-4551 b, we report a mass of 1.49 ± 0.13 MJ and a radius that is not obviously inflated of $1.058^{+0.110}_{-0.062} \ R_\mathrm{J}$, also orbiting an evolved intermediate-mass star (1.31 M⊙ and 3.55 R⊙; TIC 204650483) on a period of 9.956 d. We place both planets in context of known systems with hot Jupiters orbiting evolved hosts, and note that both planets follow the observed trend of the known stellar incident flux-planetary radius relation observed for these short-period giants. Additionally, we produce planetary interior models to estimate the heating efficiency with which stellar incident flux is deposited in the planet’s interior, estimating values of $1.91 \pm 0.48~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and $2.19 \pm 0.45~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for TOI-4377 b and TOI-4551 b, respectively. These values are in line with the known population of hot Jupiters, including hot Jupiters orbiting main-sequence hosts, which suggests that the radii of our planets have re-inflated in step with their parent star’s brightening as they evolved into the post-main sequence. Finally, we evaluate the potential to observe orbital decay in both systems.

     
    more » « less
  2. ABSTRACT

    Given the inexorable increase in the Sun’s luminosity, Earth will exit the habitable zone in ∼1 Gyr. There is a negligible chance that Earth’s orbit will change during that time through internal Solar System dynamics. However, there is a ∼ 1 per cent chance per Gyr that a star will pass within 100 au of the Sun. Here, we use N-body simulations to evaluate the possible evolutionary pathways of the planets under the perturbation from a close stellar passage. We find a ∼ 92 per cent chance that all eight planets will survive on orbits similar to their current ones if a star passes within 100 au of the Sun. Yet a passing star may disrupt the Solar System, by directly perturbing the planets’ orbits or by triggering a dynamical instability. Mercury is the most fragile, with a destruction rate (usually via collision with the Sun) higher than that of the four giant planets combined. The most probable destructive pathways for Earth are to undergo a giant impact (with the Moon or Venus) or to collide with the Sun. Each planet may find itself on a very different orbit than its present-day one, in some cases with high eccentricities or inclinations. There is a small chance that Earth could end up on a more distant (colder) orbit, through re-shuffling of the system’s orbital architecture, ejection into interstellar space (or into the Oort cloud), or capture by the passing star. We quantify plausible outcomes for the post-flyby Solar System.

     
    more » « less
  3. ABSTRACT

    Theories of planet formation give contradicting results of how frequent close-in giant planets of intermediate mass stars (IMSs; $1.3\le M_{\star }\le 3.2\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$) are. Some theories predict a high rate of IMSs with close-in gas giants, while others predict a very low rate. Thus, determining the frequency of close-in giant planets of IMSs is an important test for theories of planet formation. We use the CoRoT survey to determine the absolute frequency of IMSs that harbour at least one close-in giant planet and compare it to that of solar-like stars. The CoRoT transit survey is ideal for this purpose, because of its completeness for gas-giant planets with orbital periods of less than 10 d and its large sample of main-sequence IMSs. We present a high precision radial velocity follow-up programme and conclude on 17 promising transit candidates of IMSs, observed with CoRoT. We report the detection of CoRoT–34b, a brown dwarf close to the hydrogen burning limit, orbiting a 1.1 Gyr A-type main-sequence star. We also confirm two inflated giant planets, CoRoT–35b, part of a possible planetary system around a metal-poor star, and CoRoT–36b on a misaligned orbit. We find that $0.12 \pm 0.10\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of IMSs between $1.3\le M_{\star }\le 1.6\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ observed by CoRoT do harbour at least one close-in giant planet. This is significantly lower than the frequency ($0.70 \pm 0.16\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) for solar-mass stars, as well as the frequency of IMSs harbouring long-period planets ($\sim 8\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$).

     
    more » « less
  4. ABSTRACT

    A large fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) have metal-polluted atmospheres, which are produced by accreting material from remnant planetary systems. The composition of the accreted debris broadly resembles that of rocky Solar system objects. Volatile-enriched debris with compositions similar to long-period comets (LPCs) is rarely observed. We attempt to reconcile this dearth of volatiles with the premise that exo-Oort clouds (XOCs) occur around a large fraction of planet-hosting stars. We estimate the comet accretion rate from an XOC analytically, adapting the ‘loss cone’ theory of LPC delivery in the Solar system. We investigate the dynamical evolution of an XOC during late stellar evolution. Using numerical simulations, we show that 1–30 per cent of XOC objects remain bound after anisotropic stellar mass-loss imparting a WD natal kick of ${\sim}1 \, {\rm km \, s^{-1}}$. We also characterize the surviving comets’ distribution function. Surviving planets orbiting a WD can prevent the accretion of XOC comets by the star. A planet’s ‘dynamical barrier’ is effective at preventing comet accretion if the energy kick imparted by the planet exceeds the comet’s orbital binding energy. By modifying the loss cone theory, we calculate the amount by which a planet reduces the WD’s accretion rate. We suggest that the scarcity of volatile-enriched debris in polluted WDs is caused by an unseen population of 10–$100 \, \mathrm{au}$ scale giant planets acting as barriers to incoming LPCs. Finally, we constrain the amount of volatiles delivered to a planet in the habitable zone of an old, cool WD.

     
    more » « less
  5. ABSTRACT

    Dynamical instabilities among giant planets are thought to be nearly ubiquitous and culminate in the ejection of one or more planets into interstellar space. Here, we perform N-body simulations of dynamical instabilities while accounting for torques from the galactic tidal field. We find that a fraction of planets that would otherwise have been ejected are instead trapped on very wide orbits analogous to those of Oort cloud comets. The fraction of ejected planets that are trapped ranges from 1 to 10 per cent, depending on the initial planetary mass distribution. The local galactic density has a modest effect on the trapping efficiency and the orbital radii of trapped planets. The majority of Oort cloud planets survive for Gyr time-scales. Taking into account the demographics of exoplanets, we estimate that one in every 200–3000 stars could host an Oort cloud planet. This value is likely an overestimate, as we do not account for instabilities that take place at early enough times to be affected by their host stars’ birth cluster or planet stripping from passing stars. If the Solar system’s dynamical instability happened after birth cluster dissolution, there is a ∼7 per cent chance that an ice giant was captured in the Sun’s Oort cloud.

     
    more » « less