Kozai Migration Naturally Explains the White Dwarf Planet WD1856b

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Kozai mechanism can naturally explain the migration of the white dwarf planet WD1856b, constraining its properties and estimating the occurrence rate of similar planets around white dwarfs.

Contribution

It provides a novel explanation for WD1856b's orbit via Kozai migration and constrains its initial conditions and properties, linking stellar evolution with planetary dynamics.

Findings

WD1856b likely migrated via Kozai mechanism.

Estimated initial semi-major axis of WD1856b was 2-2.5 au.

Predicted about 100 similar planets detectable by LSST.

Abstract

The Jovian-sized object WD~1856~b transits a white dwarf (WD) in a compact $1.4$-day orbit. Unlikely to have endured stellar evolution in its current orbit, WD~1856~b is thought to have migrated from much wider separations. Because the WD is old, and a member of a well-characterized hierarchical multiple, the well-known Kozai mechanism provides an effective migration channel for WD~1856~b. Moreover, the lack of tides in the star allows us to directly connect the current semi-major axis to the pre-migration one, from which we can infer the initial conditions of the system. By further demanding that successful migrators survive all previous phases of stellar evolution, we are able to constrain the mass of WD~1856~b to be $\simeq0.7-3M_{\rm J}$ and its main sequence semi-major axis to be $\simeq 2-2.5$ au. These properties imply that WD~1856~b was born a typical gas giant. We further estimate the occurrence rate of Kozai-migrated planets around WDs to be ${\cal O}(10^{-3}{-}10^{-4})$, suggesting that WD~1856~b is the only one in the {\it TESS} sample, but implying ${\cal O}(10^2)$ future detections by LSST. In a sense, WD~1856~b was an ordinary Jovian planet that underwent an extraordinary dynamical history.