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Capture and evolution of dust in planetary mean-motion resonances: a fast, semi-analytic method for generating resonantly trapped disc images

Shannon, Andrew ; Mustill, Alexander LU orcid and Wyatt, Mark (2015) In Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 448(1). p.684-702
Abstract
Dust grains migrating under Poynting-Robertson drag may be trapped in mean-motion resonances with planets. Such resonantly trapped grains are observed in the Solar system. In extrasolar systems, the exozodiacal light produced by dust grains is expected to be a major obstacle to future missions attempting to directly image terrestrial planets. The patterns made by resonantly trapped dust, however, can be used to infer the presence of planets, and the properties of those planets, if the capture and evolution of the grains can be modelled. This has been done with N-body methods, but such methods are computationally expensive, limiting their usefulness when considering large, slowly evolving grains, and for extrasolar systems with unknown... (More)
Dust grains migrating under Poynting-Robertson drag may be trapped in mean-motion resonances with planets. Such resonantly trapped grains are observed in the Solar system. In extrasolar systems, the exozodiacal light produced by dust grains is expected to be a major obstacle to future missions attempting to directly image terrestrial planets. The patterns made by resonantly trapped dust, however, can be used to infer the presence of planets, and the properties of those planets, if the capture and evolution of the grains can be modelled. This has been done with N-body methods, but such methods are computationally expensive, limiting their usefulness when considering large, slowly evolving grains, and for extrasolar systems with unknown planets and parent bodies, where the possible parameter space for investigation is large. In this work, we present a semi-analytic method for calculating the capture and evolution of dust grains in resonance, which can be orders of magnitude faster than N-body methods. We calibrate the model against N-body simulations, finding excellent agreement for Earth to Neptune mass planets, for a variety of grain sizes, initial eccentricities, and initial semimajor axes. We then apply the model to observations of dust resonantly trapped by the Earth. We find that resonantly trapped, asteroidally produced grains naturally produce the 'trailing blob' structure in the zodiacal cloud, while to match the intensity of the blob, most of the cloud must be composed of cometary grains, which owing to their high eccentricity are not captured, but produce a smooth disc. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Earth, planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability, zodiacal dust, circumstellar matter
in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
volume
448
issue
1
pages
684 - 702
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • wos:000350273500047
  • scopus:85005961747
ISSN
1365-2966
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stv045
project
Wallenberg Academy Fellow Project
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d5ddc960-9fa8-4ceb-9681-98d64c32c6aa (old id 5300430)
alternative location
https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.01631
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:38:35
date last changed
2024-02-05 10:07:53
@article{d5ddc960-9fa8-4ceb-9681-98d64c32c6aa,
  abstract     = {{Dust grains migrating under Poynting-Robertson drag may be trapped in mean-motion resonances with planets. Such resonantly trapped grains are observed in the Solar system. In extrasolar systems, the exozodiacal light produced by dust grains is expected to be a major obstacle to future missions attempting to directly image terrestrial planets. The patterns made by resonantly trapped dust, however, can be used to infer the presence of planets, and the properties of those planets, if the capture and evolution of the grains can be modelled. This has been done with N-body methods, but such methods are computationally expensive, limiting their usefulness when considering large, slowly evolving grains, and for extrasolar systems with unknown planets and parent bodies, where the possible parameter space for investigation is large. In this work, we present a semi-analytic method for calculating the capture and evolution of dust grains in resonance, which can be orders of magnitude faster than N-body methods. We calibrate the model against N-body simulations, finding excellent agreement for Earth to Neptune mass planets, for a variety of grain sizes, initial eccentricities, and initial semimajor axes. We then apply the model to observations of dust resonantly trapped by the Earth. We find that resonantly trapped, asteroidally produced grains naturally produce the 'trailing blob' structure in the zodiacal cloud, while to match the intensity of the blob, most of the cloud must be composed of cometary grains, which owing to their high eccentricity are not captured, but produce a smooth disc.}},
  author       = {{Shannon, Andrew and Mustill, Alexander and Wyatt, Mark}},
  issn         = {{1365-2966}},
  keywords     = {{Earth; planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability; zodiacal dust; circumstellar matter}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{684--702}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}},
  title        = {{Capture and evolution of dust in planetary mean-motion resonances: a fast, semi-analytic method for generating resonantly trapped disc images}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv045}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/mnras/stv045}},
  volume       = {{448}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}