Kepler-16b: Safe in a Resonance Cell
Abstract
The planet Kepler-16b is known to follow a circumbinary orbit around a system of two main-sequence stars. We construct stability diagrams in the "pericentric distance-eccentricity" plane, which show that Kepler-16b is in a hazardous vicinity to the chaos domain—just between the instability "teeth" in the space of orbital parameters. Kepler-16b survives, because it is close to the stable half-integer 11/2 orbital resonance with the central binary, safe inside a resonance cell bounded by the unstable 5/1 and 6/1 resonances. The neighboring resonance cells are vacant, because they are "purged" by Kepler-16b, due to overlap of first-order resonances with the planet. The newly discovered planets Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b are also safe inside resonance cells at the chaos border.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- June 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/769/2/152
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1207.0101
- Bibcode:
- 2013ApJ...769..152P
- Keywords:
-
- planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability;
- planets and satellites: formation;
- planets and satellites: individual: Kepler-16b Kepler-34b Kepler-35b;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Nonlinear Sciences - Chaotic Dynamics
- E-Print:
- 17 pages, including 5 figures