Circumbinary Planet Formation in the Kepler-16 system. I. N-body Simulations
Abstract
The recently discovered circumbinary planets (Kepler-16 b, Kepler-34 b, Kepler-35 b) represent the first direct evidence of the viability of planet formation in circumbinary orbits. We report on the results of N-body simulations investigating planetesimal accretion in the Kepler-16 b system, focusing on the range of impact velocities under the influence of both stars' gravitational perturbation and friction from a putative protoplanetary disk. Our results show that planet formation might be effectively inhibited for a large range in semi-major axis (1.75 < a_P < 4 AU), suggesting that the planetary core must have either migrated from outside 4 AU, or formed in situ very close to its current location.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1204.1314,
title = {Circumbinary Planet Formation in the Kepler-16 system. I. N-body Simulations},
author = {Stefano Meschiari},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.1314},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Additional materials available at http://www.stefanom.org/?kep16b