2006/06/14 by Fred C. Adams, Gregory Laughlin · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Eccentricity (behavior) #Exoplanet #Hot Jupiter #Physics #Planet #Planetary system #Secular variation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Term (time) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/506145
published as Astrophys.J.649:1004-1009,2006 · 14 pages, 2 figures, accepted to ApJ
arxiv created 2006/06/14 · openalex publication_date 2006/09/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This paper studies the long-term evolution of planetary systems containing short-period planets, including the effects of tidal circularization, secular excitation of eccentricity by companion planets, and stellar damping. For planetary systems subject to all of these effects, analytic solutions (or approximations) are presented for the time evolution of the semimajor axes and eccentricities. Secular interactions enhance the inward migration and accretion of hot Jupiters, while general relativity tends to act in opposition by reducing the effectiveness of the secular perturbations. The analytic solutions presented herein allow us to understand these effects over a wide range of parameter space and to isolate the effects of general relativity in these planetary systems.