Kick Velocities and Mass Function of Free-Floating Planets from Dynamical Ejection in Hierarchical Three-Body Systems
Abstract
Free-floating planets (FFPs), also known as rogue planets, are sub-stellar objects that travel through the Galaxy unbound to any host star. Their velocity distribution carries information about the dynamical channel that released them from their birth systems, while their mass distribution encodes the underlying abundance of planets available for ejection. We present a suite of direct -body simulations of hierarchical three-body systems consisting of a Solar-mass host star, a massive giant perturber, and a lighter planet treated in the restricted three-body regime. We vary the mass of the ejected planet, the mass of the giant perturber, the light planet's semi-major axis, and the eccentricities of both planets, measuring the asymptotic ejection velocity and the finite-radius ejection speed at the first accepted ejection output. The ejected body's mass has little effect on the outcome over four orders of magnitude, confirming the test-particle limit. By contrast, the giant-planet mass sets the ejection scale and time, following the secular scaling . The eccentricities mainly affect the high-velocity tail rather than the median: a higher light-planet eccentricity extends the kick ceiling to km/s, while a highly eccentric giant can yield rare kicks near km/s via pericentre-enhanced slingshot encounters. We interpret these trends with a semi-analytic framework based on Hill-scale scattering, the Tisserand parameter, and an eccentricity-dependent upper envelope for slingshot energy exchange, and discuss how the ejection velocities map onto the Galactic FFP velocity dispersion and how the mass function sets the microlensing timescale distribution relevant for Roman and Euclid.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2608.02945,
title = {Kick Velocities and Mass Function of Free-Floating Planets from Dynamical Ejection in Hierarchical Three-Body Systems},
author = {Hugh Kramer and Stefano Profumo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.02945},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
39 pages, 9 figures, comments welcome