Stability of Giant Planet Moons during Planet-Planet Scattering Events
Résumé
The large observed eccentricities of giant exoplanets provide evidence that most planetary systems have violent dynamical histories. Among the known mechanisms, planet-planet scattering is thought to have played the most important role in shaping the eccentricity distribution [3,4,6,9]. Here we directly simulate the orbital stability of satellites in orbit around giant planets during planet-planet scattering. During planetary close encounters, the approaching planet perturbs satellite orbits. Depending on the strength of encounters and satellites' orbital distances with respect to their parent planets, satellites may remain bound but undergo moderate eccentricity excitation and orbital distance modification, or they can be stripped from their parent planet. In some encounters, satellites can also be captured from another planet or the gas disk [8]. We present results of our systematic study of satellite stability for planets with different masses and mass gradients and orbital histories. We will map the final orbital distribution of exomoons and make testable predictions for the presence of exomoons around giant exoplanets.