Mean motion resonance capture in the context of type-I migration

TL;DR

This study investigates how disk properties influence mean motion resonance capture during planetary migration, revealing that disk characteristics dominate over planetary mass in shaping resonant configurations, aligning with observed exoplanet systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates that disk properties primarily determine resonance capture, confirms adiabatic theory applicability, and predicts the prevalence of specific resonant chains in exoplanet systems.

Findings

Disk properties dominate resonance capture outcomes.

Adiabatic theory accurately predicts resonance formation.

Most captured systems are in 2:1 or 3:2 MMRs.

Abstract

Capture into mean motion resonance (MMR) is an important dynamical mechanism as it shapes the final architecture of a planetary system. We simulate systems of two or three planets undergoing migration with varied initial parameters such as planetary mass and disk surface density and analyse the resulting resonant chains. In contrast to previous studies, our results show that the disk properties have the dominant impact on capture into mean motion resonance, while the total planetary mass barely affects the final system configuration as long as the planet does not open a gap in the disk. We confirm that the adiabatic resonant capture is the correct framework to understand the conditions leading to MMR formation, since its predictions are qualitatively similar to the numerical results. However, we find that the eccentricity damping can facilitate the capture in a given resonance. We find that under typical disk conditions, planets tend to be captured into 2:1 or 3:2 MMRs, which agrees well with the observed exoplanet MMRs. Our results predict two categories of systems: those that have uniform chains of wide resonances (2:1 or 3:2 MMRs) and those that have a more compact inner pair than the outer pair such as 4:3:2 chains. Both categories of resonant chains are present in observed exoplanet systems. On the other hand, chains with a wider inner pair than the outer one are very rare and emerge from stochastic capture. Our work here can be used to link current configuration of exoplanetary systems to the formation conditions within protoplanetary disks.