Preliminary Insights on TRAPPIST-1's Planetesimal Disk Architecture from N-Body Simulations
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- One of the driving forces of modern astronomy is to detect and image habitable Earth-sized exoplanets to better understand the requirements for life and, by extension, our place in the universe. Recently, the TRAPPIST-1 system has become the focus of intense study because three of its seven Earth-sized terrestrial planets lie within the habitable zone of an ultra-cool red dwarf star, where water — if present at the surface — could be liquid. The orbital periods of all seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system are observed to be in small-integer ratios, with all seven planets linked via three-body resonances. Through N-body simulations, we use the long-term stability of the system and survivability of the resonance chain to constrain the feasible architecture of a theoretical planetesimal belt, in turn improving our understanding of potential volatile delivery to the planets within the habitable zone. Here we use the open-source REBOUND package to first improve on previous dynamical studies of the TRAPPIST-1 system with refined orbital parameters, and then introduce a custom collision model that can extract relative impact velocities at times of collision. We then show that planetesimal impactors preferentially target the outermost planet h, and most collisions occur in the first tens of thousands of Earth years of integration time. Our results imply that a theoretical planetesimal belt would preferentially affect the outermost planet on short timescales and initiate migration of the outer planets, potentially disrupting system stability. These N-body simulations contribute to long-running conversations regarding volatile transport via planetesimal impactors and the habitability of the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date modified | June 7, 2022; December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | June 1, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Pérez-López, Sebastian |
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9640-1201
(unverified)
|
|---|---|---|
| Thesis advisor | Hilley, George | |
| Thesis advisor | Lissauer, Jack |
Subjects
| Subject | TRAPPIST, N-body, exoplanet, habitability |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Pérez-López, S. (2022). Preliminary Insights on TRAPPIST-1's Planetesimal Disk Architecture from N-Body Simulations. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/zx771yg8740
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
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- Contact
- sebastianperezlopez9@gmail.com
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