Wednesday, July 4, 2012

1207.0101 (E. A. Popova et al.)

Kepler-16b: a resonant survivor    [PDF]

E. A. Popova, I. I. Shevchenko
The planet Kepler-16b is known to follow a circumbinary orbit around a double 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 half-integer 11/2 orbital resonance with the central binary. The neighbouring resonance cells are vacant, because they are "purged" by Kepler-16b, due to overlap of first-order resonances with the planet.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0101

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