Modeling circumbinary planets: The case of Kepler-38^⋆

¹ Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 10, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
e-mail: wilhelm.kley@uni-tuebingen.de
² Institute for Astronomy and NASA Astrobiology Institute, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96825, USA
e-mail: nader@ifa.hawaii.edu

Received: 11 December 2013
Accepted: 28 January 2014

Abstract

Context. Recently, a number of planets orbiting binary stars have been discovered by the Kepler space telescope. In a few systems the planets reside close to the dynamical stability limit. Owing to the difficulty of forming planets in such close orbits, it is believed that they have formed farther out in the disk and migrated to their present locations.

Aims. Our goal is to construct more realistic models of planet migration in circumbinary disks and to determine the final position of these planets more accurately. In our work, we focus on the system Kepler-38 where the planet is close to the stability limit.

Methods. The evolution of the circumbinary disk is studied using two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. We study locally isothermal disks as well as more realistic models that include full viscous heating, radiative cooling from the disk surfaces, and radiative diffusion in the disk midplane. After the disk has been brought into a quasi-equilibrium state, a 115 Earth-mass planet is embedded and its evolution is followed.

Results. In all cases the planets stop inward migration near the inner edge of the disk. In isothermal disks with a typical disk scale height of H/r = 0.05, the final outcome agrees very well with the observed location of planet Kepler-38b. For the radiative models, the disk thickness and location of the inner edge is determined by the mass in the system. For surface densities on the order of 3000 g/cm² at 1 AU, the inner gap lies close to the binary and planets stop in the region between the 5:1 and 4:1 mean-motion resonances with the binary. A model with a disk with approximately a quarter of the mass yields a final position very close to the observed one.

Conclusions. For planets migrating in circumbinary disks, the final position is dictated by the structure of the disk. Knowing the observed orbits of circumbinary planets, radiative disk simulations with embedded planets can provide important information on the physical state of the system during the final stages of its evolution.