The Effects of Disk Induced Apsidal Precession on Planets Captured into Mean Motion Resonance

TL;DR

This paper explores how disk-induced apsidal precession influences the capture and stability of planets in mean motion resonance, highlighting its significance in planetary system evolution.

Contribution

It introduces models of disk-induced precession effects on migrating planets, revealing their impact on resonance equilibrium and stability, especially during disk dispersal.

Findings

Precession significantly alters resonance equilibrium states.

Disk dispersal can excite libration amplitude and cause ejection.

Precession effects are crucial for understanding exoplanet system architectures.

Abstract

The process of migration into resonance capture has been well studied for planetary systems where the gravitational potential is generated exclusively by the star and planets. However, massive protoplanetary disks add a significant perturbation to these models. In this paper we consider two limiting cases of disk-induced precession on migrating planets and find that small amounts of precession significantly affect the equilibrium reached by migrating planets. We investigate these effects with a combination of semi-analytic models of the resonance and numerical integrations. We also consider the case of the disk's dispersal, which can excite significant libration amplitude and can cause ejection from resonance for large enough precession rates. Both of these effects have implications for interpreting the known exoplanet population and may prove to be important considerations as the population of well-characterized exoplanet systems continues to grow.