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Clues in the Giant Exoplanet Eccentricity Distribution Point to Planet-Planet Impacts

Presentation #206.04 in the session “Physical Structures of Exoplanets, Accretion, and Impacts”.

Published onJun 01, 2021
Clues in the Giant Exoplanet Eccentricity Distribution Point to Planet-Planet Impacts

I will talk about the origins of eccentric warm Jupiters discovered via the radial-velocity method. An important clue for their dynamical histories has not yet been explained: most of these planets with high eccentricities (e > 0.6) tend to also be planets of higher mass (m > 1 MJ). Furthermore, these eccentric planets are preferentially found around stars that are metal-rich. I will describe how these eccentricities can arise in a phase of giant impacts, which I model with n-body simulations to show that (1) the high-eccentricity giants observed today may have formed preferentially in systems of higher initial total planet mass, and (2) the upper bound on the observed giant planet eccentricity distribution is consistent with planet-planet scattering. Finally, I will describe a proof-of-concept for how the systems present in our giant impacts model can be created via pebble accretion.

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