Tidal locking of habitable exoplanets

DOI10.1007/S10569-017-9783-7zbMATH Open1479.70069arXiv1708.02981OpenAlexW3102444530WikidataQ59613365 ScholiaQ59613365MaRDI QIDQ680989FDOQ680989

Authors: Rory Barnes 

Publication date: 29 January 2018

Published in: Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Potentially habitable planets can orbit close enough to their host star that the differential gravity across their diameters can fix the rotation rate at a specific frequency, a process called tidal locking. Tidally locked planets on circular orbits will rotate synchronously, but those on eccentric orbits will either librate or rotate super-synchronously. I calculate how habitable planets evolve under two commonly-used models and find, for example, that one model predicts that the Earth's rotation rate would have synchronized after 4.5 Gyr if its initial rotation period was 3 days, it had no satellites, and it always maintained the modern Earth's tidal properties. Lower mass stellar hosts will induce stronger tidal effects on potentially habitable planets, and tidal locking is possible for most planets in the habitable zones of GKM dwarf stars. For fast rotating planets, both models predict eccentricity growth and that circularization can only occur once the rotational frequency is similar to the orbital frequency. The orbits of potentially habitable planets of very late M dwarfs (<0.15 solar masses) are very likely to be circularized within 1 Gyr and hence those planets will be synchronous rotators. Proxima b is almost assuredly tidally locked, but its orbit may not have circularized yet, so the planet could be rotating super-synchronously today. The evolution of the isolated and potentially habitable Kepler planet candidates is computed and about half could be tidally locked. Finally, projected TESS planets are simulated over a wide range of assumptions, and the vast majority of all cases are found to tidally lock within 1 Gyr. These results suggest that the process of tidal locking is a major factor in the evolution of most of the potentially habitable exoplanets to be discovered in the near future. [abridged]

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.02981

Recommendations

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zbMATH Keywords

planetary systemsrotationdissipative forcesextended body dynamics

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Galactic and stellar dynamics (85A05) Orbital mechanics (70M20)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Tidal torques: a critical review of some techniques
• Tidal friction in close-in satellites and exoplanets: the Darwin theory re-visited
• Solar System Dynamics
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• The evolution of the lunar orbit revisited. I
• Tidal synchronization of close-in satellites and exoplanets. II: Spin dynamics and extension to Mercury and exoplanet host stars
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Cited In (4)

• Atmospheric circulation of tide-locked exoplanets
• On the equilibrium rotation of Earth-like extra-solar planets
• Tidal interactions in multi-planet systems
• A direct numerical verification of tidal locking mechanism using the discrete element method

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