Lithwick Yoram, Wu Yanqin
Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; and
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3H4.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Sep 2;111(35):12610-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1308261110. Epub 2013 Dec 23.
In the inner solar system, the planets' orbits evolve chaotically, driven primarily by secular chaos. Mercury has a particularly chaotic orbit and is in danger of being lost within a few billion years. Just as secular chaos is reorganizing the solar system today, so it has likely helped organize it in the past. We suggest that extrasolar planetary systems are also organized to a large extent by secular chaos. A hot Jupiter could be the end state of a secularly chaotic planetary system reminiscent of the solar system. However, in the case of the hot Jupiter, the innermost planet was Jupiter (rather than Mercury) sized, and its chaotic evolution was terminated when it was tidally captured by its star. In this contribution, we review our recent work elucidating the physics of secular chaos and applying it to Mercury and to hot Jupiters. We also present results comparing the inclinations of hot Jupiters thus produced with observations.
在太阳系内部，行星的轨道呈混沌演化，主要由长期混沌驱动。水星具有特别混沌的轨道，在几十亿年内有脱离太阳系的危险。正如长期混沌如今正在重塑太阳系一样，它在过去可能也有助于太阳系的形成。我们认为，太阳系外行星系统在很大程度上也是由长期混沌所塑造的。一颗热木星可能是一个类似于太阳系的长期混沌行星系统的最终状态。然而，对于热木星而言，最内侧的行星是木星（而非水星）大小，并且当其被恒星潮汐俘获时，其混沌演化便终止了。在本论文中，我们回顾了我们最近的工作，该工作阐明了长期混沌的物理原理，并将其应用于水星和热木星。我们还展示了将由此产生的热木星倾角与观测结果进行比较的结果。
