Catching a planet: A tidal capture origin for the exomoon candidate Kepler 1625b I

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the exomoon candidate around Kepler 1625b I was formed through tidal capture of a Neptune-like planet, explaining its wide orbit and system characteristics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel tidal capture scenario for exomoon formation, contrasting with traditional formation theories, and explains the system's observed properties.

Findings

Tidal capture can produce wide-orbit exomoons.

Captured Neptune-like planet can evolve into a moon.

System characteristics are consistent with tidal capture model.

Abstract

The (yet-to-be confirmed) discovery of a Neptune-sized moon around the ~3.2 Jupiter-mass planet in Kepler 1625 puts interesting constraints on the formation of the system. In particular, the relatively wide orbit of the moon around the planet, at ~40 planetary radii, is hard to reconcile with planet formation theories. We demonstrate that the observed characteristics of the system can be explained from the tidal capture of a secondary planet in the young system. After a quick phase of tidal circularization, the lunar orbit, initially much tighter than 40 planetary radii, subsequently gradually widened due to tidal synchronization of the spin of the planet with the orbit, resulting in a synchronous planet-moon system. Interestingly, in our scenario the captured object was originally a Neptune-like planet, turned into a moon by its capture.