Dynamics of Planetesimals due to Gas Drag from an Eccentric Precessing Disk

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the precession of an eccentric gas disk influences the orbital dynamics of kilometer-sized planetesimals in binary systems, revealing significant effects on their eccentricities, alignment, and collision velocities.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating gas disk precession into planetesimal dynamics, showing how precession alters equilibrium solutions, eccentricity limits, and timescales compared to static disk models.

Findings

Precession causes limit cycle behavior in planetesimal orbits.

Maximum eccentricity is bounded between gas and forced eccentricities.

Precession reduces orbital decay and secular timescales significantly.

Abstract

We analyze the dynamics of individual kilometer-size planetesimals in circumstellar orbits of a tight binary system. We include both the gravitational perturbations of the secondary star and a non-linear gas drag stemming from an eccentric gas disk with a finite precession rate. We consider several precession rates and eccentricities for the gas, and compare the results with a static disk in circular orbit. The disk precession introduces three main differences with respect to the classical static case: (i) The equilibrium secular solutions generated by the gas drag are no longer fixed points in the averaged system, but limit cycles with frequency equal to the precession rate of the gas. The amplitude of the cycle is inversely dependent on the body size, reaching negligible values for $\sim 50$ km size planetesimals. (ii) The maximum final eccentricity attainable by small bodies is restricted to the interval between the gas eccentricity and the forced eccentricity, and apsidal alignment is no longer guaranteed for planetesimals strongly coupled with the gas. (iii) The characteristic timescales of orbital decay and secular evolution decrease significantly with increasing precession rates, with values up to two orders of magnitude smaller than for static disks. Finally, we apply this analysis to the $\gamma$-Cephei system and estimate impact velocities for different size bodies and values of the gas eccentricity. For high disk eccentricities, we find that the disk precession decreases the velocity dispersion between different size planetesimals, thus contributing to accretional collisions in the outer parts of the disk. The opposite occurs for almost circular gas disks, where precession generates an increase in the relative velocities.