Earth-like planets hosting systems: Architecture and properties

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to analyze planetary system architectures and properties to predict the likelihood of hosting Earth-like planets, aiding future observational efforts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel classification method for planetary system architectures and links system properties to the presence of Earth-like planets.

Findings

Biased system architecture correlates with Earth-like planet presence.

System properties can predict Earth-like planet hosting likelihood.

Synthetic models help identify systems most likely to contain Earth-like planets.

Abstract

The discovery of Earth-like planets is a major focus of current planetology research and faces a significant technological challenge. Indeed, when it comes to detecting planets as small and cold as the Earth, the cost of observation time is massive. Understanding in what type of systems Earth-like planets (ELPs) form and how to identify them is crucial for preparing future missions such as PLATO, LIFE, or others. Theoretical models suggest that ELPs predominantly form within a certain type of system architecture. Therefore, the presence or absence of ELPs could be inferred from the arrangement of other planets within the same system. This study aims to identify the profile of a typical system that harbours an ELP by investigating the architecture of systems and the properties of their innermost detectable planets. Here, we introduce a novel method for determining the architecture of planetary systems and categorising them into four distinct classes. Using three populations of synthetic planetary systems generated using the Bern model around three different types of stars, we studied the `theoretical' architecture (the architecture of a complete planetary system) and the `biased' architecture (the architecture of a system in which only detectable planets are taken into account) of the synthetic systems. The biased architecture of a system, studied in conjunction with the mass, radius, and period of the innermost detectable planet, appears to correlate with the presence or absence of an ELP in the same system. We conclude that the detections of ELPs can be predicted thanks to the already known properties of their systems, and we present a list of the properties of the systems most likely to host such a planet.