Eccentric Jupiters via Disk-Planet Interactions

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamic simulations to show that Jupiter-mass planets can have their eccentricities amplified by gas disks if they start with some eccentricity, potentially explaining observed moderate eccentricities.

Contribution

It demonstrates that finite-amplitude eccentricity growth occurs for Jupiter-mass planets via disk interactions, a novel insight into planet eccentricity evolution.

Findings

Eccentricities can grow until reaching the disk's aspect ratio.

Growth threshold eccentricity is around 0.04.

Final eccentricities can reach approximately 0.07.

Abstract

Numerical hydrodynamics calculations are performed to determine conditions under which giant planet eccentricities can be excited by parent gas disks. Unlike in other studies, Jupiter-mass planets are found to have their eccentricities amplified --- provided their orbits start eccentric. We disentangle the web of co-rotation, co-orbital, and external resonances to show that this finite-amplitude instability is consistent with that predicted analytically. Ellipticities can grow until they reach of order the disk's aspect ratio, beyond which the external Lindblad resonances that excite eccentricity are weakened by the planet's increasingly supersonic epicyclic motion. Forcing the planet to still larger eccentricities causes catastrophic eccentricity damping as the planet collides into gap walls. For standard parameters, the range of eccentricities for instability is modest; the threshold eccentricity for growth ($\sim$$0.04$) is not much smaller than the final eccentricity to which orbits grow ($\sim$$0.07$). If this threshold eccentricity can be lowered (perhaps by non-barotropic effects), and if the eccentricity driving documented here survives in 3D, it may robustly explain the low-to-moderate eccentricities $\lesssim 0.1$ exhibited by many giant planets (including Jupiter and Saturn), especially those without planetary or stellar companions.