A&A 479, 277-282 (2008)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20078794
H. Beust1 - X. Bonfils2 - X. Delfosse1 - S. Udry3
1 - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble,
UMR 5571 CNRS,
Université J. Fourier,
BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
2 -
Centro de Astronomia e Astrofísica da Universidade de Lisboa,
Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-018 Lisboa, Portugal
3 -
Observatoire de Genève, 51 ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
Received 4 October 2007 / Accepted 2 December 2007
Abstract
Context. The M dwarf Gliese 581 has recently been found to harbour two super Earths in addition to an already known close-in Neptune-mass planet. Interestingly, these two planets are considered as potentially habitable, and recent theoretical works give further credit to this hypothesis, in particular for the outermost planet (Gl 581 d).
Aims. In this paper, we address the issue of the dynamical stability evolution of this planetary system. This is important because the basic stability ensures that a 3-planet model is a physically adequate description of the radial-velocity (RV) data. It is also crucial when considering the planets' habitability because the secular evolution of the orbits may regulate their climate, even in the case where the system is stable.
Methods. We have numerically integrated the planetary system over 108 yr, starting from the present fitted solution. We also performed additional simulations where i) we vary the inclination of the system relative to the line of sight, ii) assume eccentricities at the upper limit of the error bars in the radial velocity fit and where iii) we consider additional (yet undetected) outer planets. We also compute Lyapunov exponents to quantify the level of dynamical chaos in the system.
Results. In all cases, the system appears dynamically stable, even in close to pole-on configurations. The system is actually chaotic, but nevertheless stable. The semi-major axes of the planets are extremely stable, and their eccentricities undergo small amplitude variations. The addition of potential outer planets does not affect this result.
Conclusions. Consequently, from the dynamical point-of-view, a 3-planet model is an adequate description of the present RV-data set. Only a limited range of inclinations can be excluded for coplanar orbits (
). The climate on the planets is expected to be secularly stable, thus not precluding the development of life. Gl 581 remains the best candidate for a planetary system with planets that potentially bear primitive forms of life.
Key words: planetary systems - methods: N-body simulations - celestial mechanics - stars: individual: Gliese 581 - astrobiology - stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs
Table 1: Orbital parameters of the Gl 581 planetary system, as derived from the fit of Udry et al. (2007).
Detailed further modeling by von Bloh et al. (2007) and Selsis et al. (2007) addresses
the habitability of the planets. Likewise, von Bloh et al. (2007) find
that the greenhouse
effect increases Gl 581 c temperature so much that they no longer
consider the planet to be in the habitable zone. For similar
reasons, Selsis et al. (2007) find that Gl 581 c's surface temperature
is very likely higher than the equilibrium temperature calculated by
Udry et al. (2007). However, they do not rule out habitability for this
planet, as a large cloud coverage (>)
would cool down the
planet enough. Conversely, both studies agree that the outermost
planet (Gl 581 d) is a good candidate for habitability
(although close to the outer edge of the habitable zone)
and actually consider it as the better of the two candidates.
An important and unsettled issue about this system concerns its
dynamical behaviour. It is first important to know whether the
planetary system is dynamically stable and for which range of orbital
inclinations. If verified, the basic stability of the system ensures
that the model used (3 planets) is a physically adequate description
of the observations (the radial-velocity measurements). If not
verified, the planet detections are not necessarily invalidated (as RV
periodogrammes clearly show that three coherent signals sum up at
specific periods). It would instead mean that either not enough data
were collected to converge toward the ``true'' parameters of the
system or that the model (3 planets) is not complex enough to
describe the data. Further varying the orbital inclination, we
expect to find that below
a given value - or, equivalently, above given masses
for the planets - the system becomes unstable. Not valid physically,
this range of inclinations should be rejected among the possible
solutions.
This partially constrains the
degeneracy inherent to
radial-velocity detections.
Beyond the basic stability, the secular evolution of the orbits may play an important role regarding planets' habitability. All climate calculations (Selsis et al. 2007; von Bloh et al. 2007) have been done with the currently determined orbits. The secular evolution of the orbits has the potential of affecting the climate on the planets. A given planet may lie within the habitable zone but, if subject to significant eccentricity changes, it can undergo strong climate variations that eventually preclude life development. The presently determined eccentricities (Table 1) are small enough to ensure climate stability. But one needs to know which maximum values they reach due to secular perturbations.
In the present paper, we numerically investigate the secular evolution of the Gl 581 system, starting from the solution of Table 1. In Sect. 2, we study this solution (that we subsequently refer to as the nominal case). In Sect. 3, we perform other integrations, assuming different inclinations from edge-on and letting the initial eccentricities of the planets reach their maximum values within their error bars. In order to quantify the dynamical chaos in this system, we compute Lyapunov exponents for all these solutions in Sect. 4. In Sect. 5, we investigate the perturbing action of potentially additional outer planets that have not been detected yet, provided their contribution to the radial velocity signal is small enough compared to the residuals of the 3-planets fit. Our conclusions are presented in Sect. 6.
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Figure 1: Fractional errors on the total energy E with respect to the initial one E0 (black curve), and on the total angular momentum H with respect to the initial one H0 (grey curve), as a function of time over the 108 yr integration. |
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Figure 2:
The 104 first years of the integration of the nominal
solution. The upper plots show the temporal evolution of the
eccentricity of the three planets Gl 581 b), c), and d), from left to right,
respectively; the lower plots are the same for the longitude of
periastron ![]() |
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Table 2: Precession frequencies for the nominal solution, as computed from the linear secular theory.
In Table 3, we list the maximum evolution ranges for the
orbital elements of the three planets. The semi-major axes are
extremely stable, revealing a regular dynamics out of any mean-motion
resonance configuration. The evolution ranges of the eccentricities
are narrow, so that we may claim than the system is stable with a high
level of confidence. While the time span of the integration is
108 yr, most of the characteristic features of the secular
evolution of the orbital parameters occur on a 104 yr-time
scale. Therefore, even if the star is believed to be older than
yr, the current integration clearly explores all the
dynamical possible outcomes of the system. Actually, due to the short
orbital periods of the planets (and to the high precession
frequencies), integrating the Gl 581 over 108 yr is basically
equivalent to integrating the Solar System over
100 Gyr!
Interestingly, the present-day eccentricity of Gl 581 c roughly corresponds to its maximum values along its secular evolution, and the eccentricity of Gl 581 d only has small variations. Hence we expect the climate of both outer planets to be secularly stable.
The nominal solution corresponds to an inclination
(so the
lowest possible planetary masses) and to the orbital parameters of
the discovery paper (Table 1). Lower inclinations and/or
parameter's values slightly outside the best solution may lead to
different dynamical behaviours that are worth investigating.
Table 3: Variation ranges for some orbital parameters fo the 3 planets over the 108 yr integration.
In a first set of additional simulations, we assume various
inclinations ranging from 0 (pole on) to
(edge on), but
still holding the initial eccentricities to their nominal values. The
mass of each planet is augmented by a factor
with respect
to the nominal case. In a second set of simulations we assume
different inclinations and, moreover investigate the impact of
eccentricities larger than in the nominal case (as less stability is
only expected if the eccentricity is larger). For that set, we take
the initial eccentricities for the three planets at the upper limit of
their error bars (we add
to the eccentricities) For both
sets of integrations, we plot the width of the evolution ranges
obtained over the 105 yr integration for both the semi-major axis
and the eccentricities of the three planets (Fig. 3).
As can be seen from Fig. 3, when the inclination decreases,
the dynamical interactions increase accordingly and
we expect the system to become unstable below a given inclination. As
for the nominal case, the integrations are carried out over
105 yr. They naturally show that both the semi-major axis and the
eccentricity take a wider range of values than in the nominal case
with decreasing inclinations. In the first set of integrations
(nominal initial eccentricities), the system nonetheless remains stable
down to
.
Almost pole-on configurations (
)
are
unstable and should be rejected from possible solutions. Although,
such low inclinations are very improbable, and from the statistical
point-of-view, the actual masses of the planets
are probably close to those listed in Table 1.
In the second set of simulations (
augmented initial
eccentricities), the dynamical
interactions are slightly enhanced and the semi-major axis and the
eccentricity take a wider range of values than for the first set
of additional simulations. The system is therefore found unstable
below larger inclinations (<
).
In all cases, the instability appears very unlikely.
If we assume that the rotation axis of the system is randomly
distributed in space,
occurs with a probability of 0.94. In conclusion, irrespective of its actual inclination,
the Gl 581 planetary system is very probably stable.
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Figure 3:
Stability of the three-planet system in various
configurations. The maximum variation range for the semi-major
axes ( upper plots) and for the eccentricities ( lower plots) is displayed
as a function of the assumed viewing inclination of the system with respect
to pole-on. Each cross corresponds to a single simulation. The left
plots correspond to simulations with the nominal eccentricities as
initial conditions, and the right plots to simulations with
eccentricities increased by ![]() |
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Looking for variation ranges for the orbital elements is a basic tool for investigating the stability of a planetary system. A more sophisticated way for quantifying chaos is to compute Lyapunov exponents. For all simulations decribed above, we compute the maximum Lyapunov exponents (MLE) for the three planets, following the technique by Benettin et al. (1978; see also Morbidelli 2002). The exponents are computed by integrating fictitious bodies having initial conditions that are very close to those of the planets and estimating their exponential diverge rate. We coupled this algorithm with the SyMBA integrator.
When we start integrating the bodies with initial coordinate vector
(holding for the positions and velocities of all the
bodies), we also integrate another system of bodies with identical
masses, but with initial coordinate vector
,
where
.
After a fixed normalization
time
,
we compute the error vector
as the difference at
(after integration)
between the coordinate vector of the fictitious bodies and of the
regular bodies. We then compute
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(1) |
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(2) |
In practice we compute MLEs for all the individual bodies in the integration: for each orbit we compute the associated (partial) error vector, and perform individual renormalizations. Each body has its own sequence of si's. Note that more than the absolute values of the MLE derived, the comparison between the values derived for the individual bodies and between different integrations is more relevant. This shows clearly which orbits are the most chaotic.
In our example applications, we integrate over 104 yr to compute the
MLEs.
has been fixed to 0.02 yr, i.e.,
100 times the timestep. The progress of the computation of the MLEs
in the nominal case for the three planets is plotted as a function of the
integration time in Fig. 4.
We see that they have all converged towards finite
limits at t=104 yr, showing that the orbits are actually chaotic.
The global result of MLE calculation is shown in Fig. 5, where we have computed the MLEs for the three planets for all the simulations described in Fig. 3 (stopping at t=104 yr). In all cases, we obtain non-zero exponents, showing that the system is actually chaotic.
We see that the MLEs
slowly increase with decreasing inclinations, showing as expected
that solutions at smaller inclinations are more chaotic, due
to higher planetary masses. We nevertheless note that the
variation is small except for
.
The system is
not much more chaotic at
than at
.
This
confirms that there is no real dynamical constraint on the
inclination. We also note that solutions with
increased
eccentricities are not more chaotic than those with nominal
eccentricities. As a result the dynamical stability does not put
any additional constraint on the planet eccentricities other
than those derived from the radial velocity analysis.
From Fig. 5, it also becomes clear that the two inner planets (Gl 581 b and c) are much more chaotic than the outer one (Gl 581 d) (the exponent is smaller). In fact, the two inner planets are significantly chaotic. This does not prevent them from being stable. Actually, chaos does not necessarily mean instability. The Solar System is known to be chaotic (but on longer timescales), yet it is nevertheless stable.
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Figure 4: Progress of the calculation of the partial Lyapunov exponents as a function of the integration time, in the nominal case for Gl 581 (zero inclination, nominal eccentricities). At t=104 yr, the three exponents have stabilised. |
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Figure 5:
Lyapunov exponents as a function of the
inclination i, computed for all the simulations described in
Fig. 3. Left plot: simulations with nominal
eccentricities; Right plot: simulations with ![]() |
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Table 4: Semi-major axis and eccentricity variation ranges for the 3 known planet of Gl 581, plus additional outer planets (see text), computed over 105 yr integrations.
We thus performed new simulations, each of them with the nominal
conditions, but to which we add an additional planet orbiting the star
on a circular orbit at an arbitrary distance d, and with the maximum
mass allowed by Eq. (3). All the integrations were carried
out over 105 yr. We did 5 simulations with d=5, 4, 3, 2, and
1 AU. This gives masses of 29.6, 26.5, 22.9, 18.7, and
,
respectively. We also added a simulation with a 1
Jupiter mass (
)
planet orbiting the star at 5 AU, as the
constraint (3) is less severe at this distance. Note that
this case is by far the worst possible disturbing configuration that
is still compatible with the constraints. More distant companions,
even massive, are less destabilizing. In a first-order approximation,
the perturbing effect of a distant planet of mass m orbiting at
distance d on an inner planet orbiting at distance r scales as the
tidal stripping effect on the orbit, i.e.
mr/d3. Hence a
planet at 5 AU is as disturbing as a
planet at 10 AU and a
brown
dwarf at 20 AU. The AO surveys would likely have already detected
such a massive companion.
In all cases, the whole system appears just as stable as without any additional planet. The result concerning the stability is summarised in Table 4 where we give the semi-major axis and eccentricity variation ranges for the three known planets. The results are very similar among the 6 different integrations, even in the case of a Jovian planet, showing that the additional planet has little influence on the stability of the inner system. Moreover, Table 4 is easily compared to Table 3. The varation ranges are very similar. Therefore, we may stress that any additional outer planet that fits into the constraint of the radial velocity residuals does not affect the stability of the 3-planet system. Note that the maximum eccentricity values in Table 4 are actually slightly lower than those in Table 3. This could appear surprising, since the integration in Table 3 is made without any additional perturber. Recall, however, that it extends over 108 yr instead of 105 for those in Table 4. This shows conversely that if we were entending the integrations of Table 4 up to 108 yr, we should expect slightly wider variation ranges. The basic conclusion nevertheless remains: the stability of the system is not affected.
As expected for any planetary system with regular dynamics, the
semi-major axes vary very little and the three planets are expected to
remain at their current location with respect to the star. Meanwhile,
the eccentricities of the two outer planets (both considered for
habitability) reach values that are significantly above the Earth's
value. Concerning Gl 581 c, the present-day eccentricity is close to its
maximum value. This planet is not expected to get much farther away
from its parent star and, to maintain a surface temperature cool
enough to allow the presence of liquid water, a high water-cloud
coverage (75%) would be required at any time. Regarding Gl 581 d,
the nominal eccentricity is non negligible (
0.12) and also
found to be very stable. It is significantly above the maximum value
reached by the Earth throughout its secular evolution
(
0.06, see e.g. Laskar 1988) and corresponds to a 24%
variation of the radiation flux received from the star between
apoastron and periastron. The anomalistic season effects should
therefore be strong, if not damped by the short orbital period (83 days). If we compare the periastron and apoastron values of Gl 581 d to
the habitable zone calculations by Selsis et al. (2007) and von Bloh et al. (2007),
we see that Gl 581 d is outside the habitable zone at apoastron but well
inside at periastron. As pointed out by Selsis et al. (2007), the average
stellar flux received by an eccentric orbit is enhanced by a factor
with respect to a circular orbit with the same
semi-major axis. This can help maintaining Gl 581 d in the habitable
zone. What we show here is that this effect is secularly permanent.
Now, if the obliquity of the rotation axis of this planet is non-zero, this should combine with the obliquity's seasonal effect and lead to climate differences between the hemispheres of this planet, much like Mars presently. The obliquity of Gl 581 d is of course unknown, but Selsis et al. (2007) and von Bloh et al. (2007) agree in claiming that, given the estimated age of the star (>2 Gyr), the rotation of Gl 581 d should already be tidally locked with the orbital motion. In that case, we would expect the obliquity to have been set to zero by tidal effects, and there should instead be climate differences between the night and day hemispheres. This could help in maintaining the day hemisphere habitable. Selsis et al. (2007) also show that tidal locking does not contradict the non-zero eccentricity of the orbit. Tides usually tend to both synchronize the rotation and circularize the orbit. The circularization time is almost always longer than the synchronization time (Hut 1981). For Gl 581 d, Selsis et al. (2007) estimate the synchronization time to 10 Myr and the circularization time to 10 Gyr, i.e. well above the present age of the system.
Acknowledgements
All the computations presented in this paper were performed at the Service Commun de Calcul Intensif de l'Observatoire de Grenoble (SCCI).