Free access article

A&A 426, L37-L40 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200400075

Letter

Extrasolar Trojan planets close to habitable zones

R. Dvorak, E. Pilat-Lohinger, R. Schwarz and F. Freistetter

Universitätssternwarte Wien, Türkenschanzstr. 17, 1180 Wien, Austria
    e-mail: dvorak@astro.univie.ac.at

(Received 5 August 2004 / Accepted 10 September 2004 )

Abstract
We investigate the stability regions of hypothetical terrestrial planets around the Lagrangian equilibrium points  L₄ and  L₅ in some specific extrasolar planetary systems. The problem of their stability can be treated in the framework of the restricted three body problem where the host star and a massive Jupiter-like planet are the primary bodies and the terrestrial planet is regarded as being massless. From these theoretical investigations one cannot determine the extension of the stable zones around the equilibrium points. Using numerical experiments we determined their largeness for three test systems chosen from the table of the know extrasolar planets, where a giant planet is moving close to the so-called habitable zone around the host star in low eccentric orbits. The results show the dependence of the size and structure of this region, which shrinks significantly with the eccentricity of the known gas giant.

Key words: planets: Trojan planets -- stars: individual: HD 114783 -- stars: individual: HD 23079 -- stars: individual: HD 4208

SIMBAD Objects

© ESO 2004

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