Birth Locations of the Kepler Circumbinary Planets

TL;DR

This paper models the dynamics of planetesimals in circumbinary disks to determine where planets could have formed, highlighting the influence of binary perturbations, disk gravity, and initial planetesimal size on planet formation locations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model of secular planetesimal dynamics in circumbinary disks, incorporating binary perturbations, disk gravity, and gas drag, to identify potential planet formation zones.

Findings

Planet formation outside a few AU is possible starting from 10-100 m planetesimals.

Growth of km-sized planetesimals is inhibited within 2-4 AU due to binary perturbations and secular resonances.

In situ planetesimal growth requires large initial bodies in low-mass disks with specific density conditions.

Abstract

The Kepler mission has discovered about a dozen circumbinary planetary systems, all containing planets on ~ 1 AU orbits. We place bounds on the locations in the circumbinary protoplanetary disk, where these planets could have formed through collisional agglomeration starting from small (km-sized or less) planetesimals. We first present a model of secular planetesimal dynamics that accounts for the (1) perturbation due to the eccentric precessing binary, as well as the (2) gravity and (3) gas drag from a precessing eccentric disk. Their simultaneous action leads to rich dynamics, with (multiple) secular resonances emerging in the disk. We derive analytic results for size-dependent planetesimal eccentricity, and demonstrate the key role of the disk gravity for circumbinary dynamics. We then combine these results with a simple model for collisional outcomes and find that in systems like Kepler 16, planetesimal growth starting with 10-100 m planetesimals is possible outside a few AU. The exact location exterior to which this happens is sensitive to disk eccentricity, density and precession rate, as well as to the size of the first generation of planetesimals. Strong perturbations from the binary in the inner part of the disk, combined with a secular resonance at a few AU inhibit the growth of km-sized planetesimals within 2 - 4 AU of the binary. In situ planetesimal growth in the Kepler circumbinary systems is possible only starting from large (few-km-sized) bodies in a low-mass disk with surface density less than 500 g/cm^2 at 1 AU.