Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013
Poster 2H022
Terrestrial planet formation in binary star systems with a giant planet
Sándor, Zsolt (Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna)
Pilat-Lohinger, Elke (Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna)
Abstract:
Planet formation in binary stars is a highly topical area of the present-day astrophysics, since about 60% of stars born as a member of a binary system (Duquennoy & Mayor 1991). According to Raghavan et al. (2010), both single and multiple stars are equally likely harboring planets. The reason of this is that the majority of binaries have large separations, therefore the planet formation might only slightly be influenced by the companion’s gravitational perturbation. This is not true in the case of the few giant planets formed in binary systems with mid separations (~ 20 AU), whose best known representative is Gamma Cephei (Campbell et al. 1988, Hatzes et al. 2003).
In our research we investigate the late stage of terrestrial planet formation around the more massive star in binary systems. We consider a swarm of isolated planetary embryos, and study their final assembly via N-body simulations with and without the presence of an already formed Jupiter-like giant planet. Our results suggest that the gravitational effects of a giant planet may help planet formation.
References
Campbell, B., Walker, G.A.H., Yang, S. 1988, ApJ, 331, 902
Duquennoy, A. & Mayor, M. 1991, A&A, 248, 485
Hatzes, A. P., Cochran, W. D., Endl, M., et al. 2003, ApJ, 599, 1383
Raghavan, D., McAlister, H. A., Henry, T. J., et al. 2010, ApJS, 190, 1
Click here to view poster PDF