Shaping HR8799's outer dust belt with an unseen planet

TL;DR

This study uses N-body simulations to explore how an unseen fifth planet could shape HR8799's outer dust belt, aligning models with observations and offering insights into debris dynamics and planet detection.

Contribution

It introduces the hypothesis of a fifth planet influencing the debris belt structure and demonstrates its consistency with observations and stability constraints.

Findings

A fifth planet with 0.1 M_J at 138 au predicts an outer belt matching ALMA data.

The known four planets alone cannot explain the belt's observed position.

Inward scattering of material is insufficient to replenish the inner belt significantly.

Abstract

HR8799 is a benchmark system for direct imaging studies. It hosts two debris belts, which lie internally and externally to four giant planets. This paper considers how the four known planets and a possible fifth planet, interact with the external population of debris through N-body simulations. We find that when only the known planets are included, the inner edge of the outer belt predicted by our simulations is much closer to the outermost planet than recent ALMA observations suggest. We subsequently include a fifth planet in our simulations with a range of masses and semi-major axes, which is external to the outermost known planet. We find that a fifth planet with a mass and semi-major axis of 0.1$\mathrm{M_J}$ and 138au predicts an outer belt that agrees well with ALMA observations, whilst remaining stable for the lifetime of HR8799 and lying below current direct imaging detection thresholds. We also consider whether inward scattering of material from the outer belt can input a significant amount of mass into the inner belt. We find that for the current age of HR8799, only $\sim$1\% of the mass loss rate of the inner disk can be replenished by inward scattering. However we find that the higher rate of inward scattering during the first $\sim$10Myr of HR8799 would be expected to cause warm dust emission at a level similar to that currently observed, which may provide an explanation for such bright emission in other systems at $\sim10$Myr ages.