The effects of dynamical interactions on planets in young substructured star clusters

TL;DR

This study uses N-body simulations to explore how dynamical interactions in young, substructured star clusters affect planetary systems, revealing significant planet liberation, orbital changes, and implications for observing free-floating planets.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the dynamical processing of planetary systems in various cluster environments through detailed N-body simulations.

Findings

10% of planets at 30au are liberated after 10 Myr.

Orbital eccentricities and inclinations are significantly altered.

Free-floating planets have velocity distributions similar to cluster stars.

Abstract

We present N-body simulations of young substructured star clusters undergoing various dynamical evolutionary scenarios and examine the direct effects of interactions in the cluster on planetary systems. We model clusters initially in cool collapse, in virial equilibrium and expanding, and place a 1 Jupiter-mass planet at either 5au or 30au from their host stars, with zero eccentricity. We find that after 10Myr 10% of planets initially orbiting at 30au have been liberated from their parent star and form a population of free-floating planets. A small number of these planets are captured by other stars. A further 10% have their orbital eccentricity significantly altered. The change in eccentricity is often accompanied by a change in orbital inclination which may lead to additional dynamical perturbations in planetary systems. The fraction of liberated and disrupted planetary systems is highest for subvirial clusters, but virial and supervirial clusters also dynamically process planetary systems, due to interactions in the substructure. Of the planets that become free-floating, those that remain observationally associated with the cluster (within two half-mass radii of the cluster centre) have a similar velocity distribution to the entire star cluster, irrespective of whether they were on a 5au or a 30au orbit, with median velocities typically 1km/s. Conversely, those planets that are no longer associated with the cluster have similar velocities to the non-associated stars if they were originally at 5au (9km/s), whereas planets originally at 30au have much lower velocities (3.8km/s) than the stars (10.8km/s). These findings highlight potential pitfalls of concluding that (a) planets with similar velocities to the cluster stars represent the very low-mass end of the IMF, and (b) planets on the periphery of a cluster with very different observed velocities form through different mechanisms.