The Astrophysical Journal, 817:18 (13pp), 2016 January 20 doi:10.3847/0004-637X/817/1/18 © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. RESONANT REMOVAL OF EXOMOONS DURING PLANETARY MIGRATION Christopher Spalding1, Konstantin Batygin1, and Fred C. Adams2,3 1 Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 2 Physics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA 3 Astronomy Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA Received 2015 October 2; accepted 2015 November 30; published 2016 January 19 ABSTRACT Jupiter and Saturn play host to an impressive array of satellites, making it reasonable to suspect that similar systems of moons might exist around giant extrasolar planets. Furthermore, a significant population of such planets is known to reside at distances of several Astronomical Units (AU), leading to speculation that some moons thereof might support liquid water on their surfaces. However, giant planets are thought to undergo inward migration within their natal protoplanetary disks, suggesting that gas giants currently occupying their host star’s habitable zone formed farther out. Here we show that when a moon-hosting planet undergoes inward migration, dynamical interactions may naturally destroy the moon through capture into a so-called evection resonance.Within this resonance, the lunar orbit’s eccentricity grows until the moon eventually collides with the planet. Our work suggests that moons orbiting within about ∼10 planetary radii are susceptible to this mechanism, with the exact number dependent on the planetary mass, oblateness, and physical size. Whether moons survive or not is critically related to where the planet began its inward migration, as well as the character of interlunar perturbations. For example, a Jupiter-like planet currently residing at 1 AU could lose moons if it formed beyond ∼5 AU. Cumulatively, we suggest that an observational census of exomoons could potentially inform us on the extent of inward planetary migration, for which no reliable observational proxy currently exists. Key words: celestial mechanics – planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability 1. INTRODUCTION Moons are expected to arise as an intrinsic outcome of giant- planet formation (Canup & Ward 2002; Mosqueira et al. 2010). The past two decades have brought thousands of extrasolar In particular, the core accretion model dictates that cores planetary candidates to light. These systems have repeatedly comprising multiple Earth masses of materialform outside challenged the notion that our solar system is somehow typical their natal disks’ ice line, before initiating a period of runaway (Winn & Fabrycky 2015). Notable examples include the gas accretion (Pollack et al. 1996; Lambrechts & Johansen existence of hot Jupiters (Mayor & Queloz 1995), spin–orbit 2012). Restricting attention to planets with masses greater than misalignments (Winn et al. 2010), and the prevalence of highly Saturn, their gravitational influence on the protoplanetary disk compact, multiplanet systems (Lissauer et al. 2011; Rowe will eventually clear a “gap” in the gas within their vicinity et al. 2015). However, as of yet, we have not been able to place (Crida et al. 2006). Material is capable of flowing through the the many known solar system moons into their appropriate gap and entering the planet’s Hill sphere (r ; the region around Galactic context. Observational surveys are now under way H the planet where its potential dominates the motion of test with this specific goal (Kipping 2009; Kipping et al. 2009, particles). The residual angular momentum of the material is 2012, 2015). Motivated by the potential for upcoming exolunar then distributed into a circumplanetary disk, extending out to detections, this work explores how the present-day configura- ∼0.4r (Martin & Lubow 2011), where moons are thought tions of exomoons might have been sculpted by dynamical H to form. interactions playing out during the epoch of planet formation. The angular momentum exchange associated with gapclear- Not long after the first detections of giant extrasolar planets ing, in concert with viscous accretion within the protoplanetary (Mayor & Queloz 1995), speculations arose regarding what disk, is expected to drive Type II migration of young planets, types of moons these bodies may host (Williams et al. 1997). taking them to shorter-period orbits. Traditional theoretical Much of the interest has been astrobiological in nature—if treatments have suggested that the Type II migration rate is giant planets reside in the habitable zones of their host stars, similar to the accretional velocity of disk gas (Armitage 2010; perhaps the moons thereof are capable of sustaining liquid Kley & Nelson 2012), though reality is likely more water on their surfaces (Heller et al. 2014). In contrast, any complicated (Duffell et al. 2014). Regardless, it is widely putative liquid water within the moons of Jupiter and Saturn suspected that migration rates can be sufficient to reduce must be maintained by way of tidal heating. Within the current planetary semimajor axes by well over an order of magnitude observational data set, however, our solar system’s giant-planet within a typical disk lifetime (1–10 Myr; Haisch et al. 2001; see configuration is by no means universal. A significant popula- below). Consequently, the “Jupiters” currently residing at tion of giant planets is found to reside in the range of ∼1–5AU several AU probably formed at more distant radii. Crucially, (Dawson & Murray-Clay 2013), just inside the orbit of however, there currently exists no reliable, observational proxy Jupiter4 (5.2 AU). that constrains the extent of migration. 4 In this paper, we demonstrate that if the migrating planet The apparent scarcity of planets at Jupiter’s distance is subject to ’ observational biases, not least owing to the associated long orbital periods. hosts a moon, inward migration can lead to the moon s Recent searches are uncovering more distant bodies (e.g., Knutson et al. 2014). destruction by way of the “evection resonance” (Yoder & 1 The Astrophysical Journal, 817:18 (13pp), 2016 January 20 Spalding, Batygin, & Adams Kaula 1976; Touma & Wisdom 1998; Ćuk & Stewart 2012). the caveat that the Roche radii of more massive, compact To illustrate the problem, consider the apsidal precession of a planets may indeed lie outside the planetary surface. lunar orbit around an oblate giant planet. At large heliocentric In addition to the planetary radius, an approximation for J2 is distances, this precession is more rapid than the planetary mean required. For purely rotational deformation, the relationship motion about the central star. As the planet migrates inward, its between J2, the Love number k2 (twice the apsidal motion orbital frequency increases before becoming approximately constant), and the planetary spin rate Ω may be expressed as commensurate with the lunar precession frequency. Assuming (Sterne 1939) resonant capture (see Equation (35)), further migration will ’ 1 ⎛ W ⎞2 pump the moon s eccentricity upward until its pericenter Jk= ⎜ ⎟ ,2() ’ 2 ⎝ ⎠ 2 approaches the planet s surface and the moon is lost. 3 Wb Our treatment here remains largely outside of the realm of 2 3 hot Jupiters (giant planets with orbital periods of several days), where Wºb GMp Rp is the breakup spin rate. Unfortunately, whose reduced Hill spheres permit satellites only within a few the above expression merely expresses one unknown quantity ( ) planetary radii Domingos et al. 2006; Kipping 2009 . J2 as a function of two other unknown quantities. However, k2 Planetary migration may therefore remove moons around these can be estimated by modeling the planet as a polytrope with objects without the resonant mechanism proposed here. index χ=3/2(Chandrasekhar 1957; Batygin & Adams 2013), – Additionally, tidal planet moon interactions further reduce yielding a Love number k ≈0.28. ( ) 2 the stability region of lunar orbits by expelling or destroying It is more difficult to speculate on Ω/Ω . The young giant ( ’ ) b larger moons over Gyr timescales Barnes & O Brien 2002 . planet in β Pictoris b has had its spin period estimated at ∼8hr fi These issues make it dif cult to relate current exolunar (Snellen et al. 2014), close to what one would expect by architectures of closer-in planets to their formation conditions. extrapolating the equatorial velocities of the solar system’s Consequently, we restrict our attention to bodies outside of planets to the mass of β Pictoris b (about M ). This result ∼ 8 J 0.5 AU from their stars. tentatively suggests that spin rates of young giant planets are The mechanism described herein requires both that the little altered between 10 Myr and 4.5 Gyr after their formation, – planet moon system begins outside of resonance and that but the spin rate within the first 1 Myr remains purely migration proceeds until the moon is lost by collision. These speculative. For the sake of definiteness, we take J =0.02 fi 2 conditions are quanti ed in Section 3. The dynamics are as a nominal value for young giant planets, slightly larger than critically dependent on the planetary radius planet and second Jupiter’s current J ≈0.015 (Murray & Dermott 1999).We ( 2 gravitational moment J2 these determine the lunar precession note, however, that J may reasonablylie within the range frequency). Accordingly, we must begin with a brief discussion 2 0.01>J2>0.1, with the upper bound deduced from Equa- of reasonable parameters associated with young giant planets. tion (2), and so further research is required to better constrain this quantity. 1.1. Properties of Young Giant Planets Early models of giant planets naturally focused on older 2. EVECTION RESONANCE planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn. The advantage here was In this section, we quantitatively describe the dynamical that interior models lost their sensitivity to initial conditions influences on a lunar orbit hosted by a young, giant planet. (∼ ) – over the relatively short 20 Myr Kelvin Helmholtz time- Consider the moon’s orbit to have eccentricity e, inclination i, scale (Stevenson 1982; Marley et al.