Tidal evolution of exo-planetary systems: WASP-50, GJ 1214 and CoRoT-7

TL;DR

This paper uses numerical simulations to study how tidal forces influence the orbital evolution of exoplanetary systems WASP-50, GJ 1214, and CoRoT-7, revealing significant effects on their orbital decay and circularization.

Contribution

It provides new insights into tidal evolution mechanisms and estimates the initial eccentricities and dissipation factors affecting these specific exoplanetary systems.

Findings

Tidal decay and circularization significantly shape planetary orbits.

GJ 1214b may have a larger eccentricity and higher dissipation factor than typical.

Tidal forces cause inward migration and circularization in CoRoT-7 system.

Abstract

We perform numerical simulations to investigate tidal evolution of two single-planet systems, that is, WASP-50 and GJ 1214 and a two-planet system CoRoT-7. The results of orbital evolution show that tidal decay and circularization may play a significant role in shaping their final orbits, which is related to the initial orbital data in the simulations. For GJ 1214 system, different cases of initial eccentricity are also considered as only an upper limit of its eccentricity (0.27) is shown, and the outcome suggests a possible maximum initial eccentricity (0.4) in the adopted dynamical model. Moreover, additional runs with alternative values of dissipation factor $Q^\prime_1$ are carried out to explore tidal evolution for GJ 1214b, and these results further indicate that the real $Q^\prime_1$ of GJ 1214b may be much larger than its typical value, which may reasonably suggest that GJ 1214b bears a present-day larger eccentricity, undergoing tidal circularization at a slow rate. For the CoRoT-7 system, tidal forces make two planets migrating towards their host star as well as producing tidal circularization, and in this process tidal effects and mutual gravitational interactions are coupled with each other. Various scenarios of the initial eccentricity of the outer planet have also been done to investigate final planetary configuration. Tidal decay arising from stellar tides may still work for each system as the eccentricity decreases to zero, and this is in association with the remaining lifetime of each planet used to predict its future.