The Stability and Prospects of the Detection of Terrestrial/Habitable Planets in Multiplanet and Multiple Star Systems

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the long-term stability and detection prospects of terrestrial and habitable planets in complex multibody systems, emphasizing the roles of giant planets and binary stars in their observability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the stability and detection likelihood of terrestrial planets in multi-planet and binary star systems, highlighting conditions favorable for their discovery.

Findings

Short-period terrestrial planets can be detected via transit methods.

Detection of habitable planets is more promising in systems with distant giant planets.

Binary systems with moderate stellar separation offer higher prospects for habitable planet detection.

Abstract

Given the tendency of planets to form in multiples, and the observational evidence in support of the existence of potential planet-hosting stars in binaries or clusters, it is expected that extrasolar terrestrial planes are more likely to be found in multiple body systems. This paper discusses the prospects of the detection of terrestrial/habitable planets in multibody systems by presenting the results of a study of the long-term stability of these objects in systems with multiple giant planets (particularly those in eccentric and/or in mean-motion resonant orbits), systems with close-in Jupiter-like bodies, and systems of binary stars. The results of simulations show that while short-period terrestrial-class objects that are captured in near mean-motion resonances with migrating giant planets are potentially detectable via transit photometry or the measurement of the variations of the transit-timing due to their close-in Jovian-mass planetary companions, the prospect of the detection of habitable planets with radial velocity technique is higher in systems with multiple giant planets outside the habitable zone and binary systems with moderately separated stellar companions.