Flyby Encounters Research Articles

Formation of misaligned second-generation discs through fly-by encounters

ABSTRACT Observations reveal protoplanetary discs being perturbed by fly-by candidates. We simulate a scenario where an unbound perturber, i.e. a fly-by, undergoes an inclined grazing encounter, capturing material and forming a second-generation protoplanetary disc. We run N-body and three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of a parabolic fly-by grazing a particle disc and a gas-rich protoplanetary disc, respectively. In both our N-body and hydrodynamic simulations, we find that the captured, second-generation disc forms at a tilt twice the initial fly-by tilt. This relationship is robust to variations in the fly-by’s tilt, position angle, periastron, and mass. We extend this concept by also simulating the case where the fly-by has a disc of material prior to the encounter but we do not find the same trend. An inclined disc with respect to the primary disc around a misaligned fly-by is tilted by a few degrees, remaining close to its initial disc tilt. Therefore, if a disc is present around the fly-by before the encounter, the disc may not tilt up to twice the perturber tilt depending on the balance between the angular momentum of the circumsecondary disc and captured particles. In the case where the perturber has no initial disc, analysing the orientation of these second-generation discs can give information about the orbital properties of the fly-by encounter.

Flyby Galaxy Encounters with Multiple Black Holes Produce Star-forming Linear Features

We look for simulated star-forming linear features such as the one recently discovered by van Dokkum et al. in the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation ASTRID. Among the runaway black holes in ASTRID, none are able to produce clear star-forming wakes. Meanwhile, flyby encounters, typically involving a compact galaxy (with a central black hole) and a star-forming galaxy (with a duo of black holes), reproduce remarkably well many of the key properties (length and linearity, recent star formation, etc.) of the observed star-forming linear feature. We predict that the feature will persist for approximately 100 Myr in such a system and hence constitute a rare event. The feature contains a partly stripped galaxy (with M gal = 109–1010 M ⊙) and a dual black hole system (M BH = 105–107 M ⊙) in its brightest knot. The X-ray emission from AGN in the knot should be detectable in such systems. After 100–200 Myr from the first flyby, the galaxies merge, leaving behind a triple black hole system in a (still) actively star-forming early-type remnant of mass ∼5 × 1010 M ⊙. Follow-up JWST observations may be key for revealing the nature of these linear features by potentially detecting the older stellar populations constituting the bright knot. Confirmation of such detections may therefore help discriminate a flyby encounter from a massive black hole wake to reveal the origin of such features.

The Effect of Age on the Grouping of Open Clusters: II—Are There Old Binary Clusters?

In the present study, we continue testing the Primordial Group hypothesis (Casado 2022), which postulates that only sufficiently young open clusters can be binary or multiple, and old clusters are essentially single. To this end, we revisit all the remaining binary cluster candidates in the Galaxy having at least one cluster older than 100 Myr through Gaia data and careful revision of the literature. We found no convincing case for an old binary system among the 120 pairs/groups revised. Most of the pairs are optical pairs or flyby encounters. However, we found three dubious pairs that could falsify the title hypothesis upon further research. We also found two possible primordial pairs older than expected. Our results confirm that the vast majority of binary/multiple OCs in the Galaxy, if not all, are of primordial origin and are not stable for a long time. This finding is in line with similar studies of the Magellanic Clouds and theoretical N-body simulations in the Galaxy. The pairs of OCs in these groups are generally not binary systems since they are not gravitationally bound. We also point out some inconsistencies in previous works and databases, such as false open clusters and duplicities.

Lucy Mission to the Trojan Asteroids: Instrumentation and Encounter Concept of Operations

Abstract The Lucy Mission accomplishes its science during a series of five flyby encounters with seven Trojan asteroid targets. This mission architecture drives a concept of operations design that maximizes science return, provides redundancy in observations where possible, features autonomous fault protection, and utilizes onboard target tracking near closest approach. These design considerations reduce risk during the relatively short time-critical periods when science data is collected. The payload suite consists of a color camera and infrared imaging spectrometer, a high-resolution panchromatic imager, and a thermal infrared spectrometer. The mission design allows for concurrent observations of all instruments. Additionally, two spacecraft subsystems will also contribute to the science investigations: the Terminal Tracking Cameras will obtain wide field-of-view imaging near closest approach to determine the shape of each of the Trojan targets and the telecommunication subsystem will carry out Doppler tracking of the spacecraft to determine the mass of each of the Trojan targets.

Optical Gravimetry mass measurement performance for small body flyby missions

It is challenging or infeasible to precisely measure the mass of small asteroids using the state-of-the-art without a dedicated spacecraft rendezvous mission, which are typically limited to one or a few asteroid targets. Alternatively, spacecraft flyby missions offer the possibility of visiting multiple asteroids but typically lack the sensitivity to measure mass for all but the largest asteroids. In these encounters, Earth-based two-way Doppler is used to measure a change in the spacecraft's velocity imparted by the asteroid. The technique known as Optical Gravimetry (OpGrav) seeks to increase this sensitivity of mass measurements from flyby encounters using optical measurements from the spacecraft to one or more test-masses. In this technique, the spacecraft deploys the test-masses prior to an asteroid flyby and then tracks them before and after the encounter using an on-board telescope. The test-masses can pass much closer to the asteroid than a spacecraft would typically choose such that their trajectories are measurably deflected. This paper provides a quantitative sensitivity analysis of the design parameters most relevant to OpGrav, including asteroid mass, flyby velocity, number of test-masses, test-mass target altitude, test-mass deployment time, and the cadence of optical measurements. Additionally, this paper investigates the effect of practical test-mass deployment errors on the expected mass measurement. Broadly speaking, this analysis shows that OpGrav provides comparable sensitivity to the existing technique at asteroids that are five to ten times smaller in diameter, depending on whether one or three test-masses are deployed. We demonstrate that under realistic mission assumptions, the use of OpGrav would have allowed all previous flyby visits of asteroids, most of which were not able to obtain mass estimates, to achieve better than 25% 1σ accuracy in mass measurements, representing a significant improvement on the state of the art.

Local variations of the Stellar Velocity Ellipsoid-I: the disc of galaxies in the Auriga simulations

ABSTRACT The connection between the Stellar Velocity Ellipsoid (SVE) and the dynamical evolution of galaxies has been a matter of debate in the last years and there is no clear consensus whether different heating agents (e.g. spiral arms, giant molecular clouds, bars and mergers) leave clear detectable signatures in the present day kinematics. Most of these results are based on a single and global SVE and have not taken into account that these agents do not necessarily equally affect all regions of the stellar disc. We study the two-dimensional (2D) spatial distribution of the SVE across the stellar discs of Auriga galaxies, a set of high resolution magnetohydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations, to unveil the connection between local and global kinematic properties in the disc region. We find very similar, global, σz/σr = 0.80 ± 0.08 values for galaxies of different Hubble types. This shows that the global properties of the SVE at z = 0 are not a good indicator of the heating and cooling events experienced by galaxies. We also find that similar σz/σr radial profiles are obtained through different combinations of σz and σr trends: at a local level, the vertical and radial components can evolve differently, leading to similar σz/σr profiles at z = 0. By contrast, the 2D spatial distribution of the SVE varies a lot more from galaxy to galaxy. Present day features in the SVE spatial distribution may be associated with specific interactions such as fly-by encounters or the accretion of low mass satellites even in the cases when the global SVE is not affected. The stellar populations decomposition reveals that young stellar populations present colder and less isotropic SVEs and more complex 2D distributions than their older and hotter counterparts.

The Global Distribution of Ultralow‐Frequency Waves in Jupiter's Magnetosphere

AbstractJupiter's giant magnetosphere is a complex system seldom in a configuration approximating steady state, and a clear picture of its governing dynamics remains elusive. Crucial to understanding how the magnetosphere behaves on a large scale are disturbances to the system on length‐scales comparable to the cavity, which are communicated by magnetohydrodynamic waves in the ultralow‐frequency band (<1 mHz). In this study we used magnetometer data from multiple spacecraft to perform the first global heritage survey of these waves in the magnetosphere. To map the equatorial region, we relied on the large local‐time coverage provided by the Galileo spacecraft. Flyby encounters performed by Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11, and Ulysses provided local‐time coverage of the dawn sector. We found several hundred events where significant wave power was present, with periods spanning ∼5–60 min. The majority of events consisted of multiple superposed discrete periods. Periods at ∼15, ∼30, and ∼40 min dominated the event‐averaged spectrum, consistent with the spectra of quasi‐periodic pulsations often reported in the literature. Most events were clustered in the outer magnetosphere close to the magnetopause at noon and dusk, suggesting that an external driving mechanism may dominate. The most energetic events occurred close to the planet, though more sporadically, indicating an accumulation of wave energy in the inner magnetosphere or infrequent impulsive drivers in the region. Our findings suggest that dynamics of the system at large scales is modulated by this diverse population of waves, which permeate the magnetosphere through several cavities and wave guides.

High rate of gravitational waves mergers from flyby perturbations of wide black hole triples in the field

ABSTRACT Ultrawide triple black holes (TBHs; with an outer orbit >103 au) in the field can be considerably perturbed by flyby encounters with field stars through the excitation of their outer orbit eccentricities. We study the cumulative effect of such flybys, and show them to be conductive for the production of gravitational-wave (GW) sources. Flyby encounters with TBHs can destabilize them, leading to binary–single resonant encounters between the outer black hole (BH) and the inner binary. These encounters can result in either a prompt GW merger of two of the TBH components during the resonant phase, or the disruption of the TBH. In the latter case, a more compact binary is left behind, while the third BH is ejected. Such compact remnant binaries may still inspiral through GW emission, producing delayed GW mergers, with a significant fraction of these merging in less than a Hubble time. We find a volumetric merger rate of ∼3–10 Gpc−3 yr−1 contributed by the (former) prompt-merger TBH channel and ${\sim} 100\!-\!250\,{\rm {\rm Gpc^{-3}\,yr^{-1}}}$ contributed by the (latter) delayed-merger TBH channel. The prompt channel gives rise to eccentric mergers in the aLIGO band, while the majority of the delayed GW mergers are circularized when enter the aLIGO band. We find the total eccentric volumetric merger rate to be ∼1–10 Gpc−3 yr−1 from both channels. We expect these mergers to show no significant spin–orbit alignment, and uniform delay-time distribution.

Gravitational-wave Capture in Spinning Black Hole Encounters

Abstract The orbits of two black holes (BHs) that are initially unbound can be transformed into bound orbits by emitting gravitational waves during close encounters in a star cluster, which is called gravitational-wave (GW) capture. The effects of spin of BHs on GW capture are investigated in the context of numerical relativity. The radiated energy during the encounter is dependent on the effective spin when the BHs have equal masses, as expected from post-Newtonian approximation. The strongest emission is produced when the spins of both BHs are anti-aligned to the orbital angular momentum in the case of fly-by encounters. But the opposite is true in the case of direct merging: the strongest emission comes from the BHs with aligned spins to the orbital angular momentum. The fraction of direct merging among the GW captures increases in proportion to v 4/7, assuming the uniform distribution of pericenter distances in the encounters, where v is the velocity dispersion of the cluster, which means about 5% of GW capture leads to the direct merging for star clusters with v = 150 km s−1.

Flyby encounters between two planetary systems II: exploring the interactions of diverse planetary system architectures

ABSTRACT Planetary systems formed in clusters may be subject to stellar encounter flybys. Here, we create a diverse range of representative planetary systems with different orbital scales and planets’ masses and examine encounters between them in a typical open cluster. We first explore the close-in multisuper Earth systems ≲0.1 au. They are resistant to flybys in that only ones inside a few au can destabilize a planet or break the resonance between such planets. But these systems may capture giant planets on to wide orbits from the intruding star during distant flybys. If so, the original close-in small planets’ orbits may be tilted together through Kozai–Lidov mechanism, forming a ‘cold’ system that is significantly inclined against the equator of the central host. Moving to the intermediately placed planets around solar-like stars, we find that the planets’ mass gradient governs the systems’ long-term evolution post-encounter: more massive planets have better chances to survive. Also, a system’s angular momentum deficit, a quantity describing how eccentric/inclined the orbits are, measured immediately after the encounter, closely relates to the longevity of the systems – whether or not and when the systems turn unstable in the ensuing evolution millions of years post-encounter. We compare the orbits of the surviving planets in the unstable systems through (1) the immediate consequence of the stellar fly or (2) internal interplanetary scattering long post-encounter and find that those for the former are systematically colder. Finally, we show that massive wide-orbit multiplanet systems like that of HR 8799 can be easily disrupted and encounters at a few hundreds of au suffice.

Fly-by encounters between two planetary systems I: Solar system analogues

ABSTRACTStars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, 10–20 per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to encounter another star at distances closer than 100 au. These close encounters strongly perturb the planetary systems, directly causing ejection of planets or their capture by the intruding star, as well as exciting the orbits. Using extensive N-body simulations, we study such fly-by encounters between two Solar system analogues, each with four giant planets from Jupiter to Neptune. We quantify the rates of loss and capture immediately after the encounter, e.g. the Neptune analogue is lost in one in four encounters within 100 au, and captured by the flying-by star in 1 in 12 encounters. We then perform long-term (up to 1 Gyr) simulations investigating the ensuing post-encounter evolution. We show that large numbers of planets are removed from systems due to planet–planet interactions and that captured planets further enhance the system instability. While encounters can initially leave a planetary system containing more planets by inserting additional ones, the long-term instability causes a net reduction in planet number. A captured planet ends up on a retrograde orbit in half of the runs in which it survives for 1Gyr; also, a planet bound to its original host star but flipped during the encounter may survive. Thus, encounters between planetary systems are a channel to create counter-rotating planets, This would happen in around 1 per cent of systems, and such planets are potentially detectable through astrometry or direct imaging.

The evolution of bulges of galaxies in minor fly-by interactions

AbstractWe investigate the minor interactions of two disk galaxies with mass ratio of 10:1 in fly-by encounters that do not lead to the merging of the galaxies. In our N-body simulations, we vary only the pericenter distances to see the effect of the fly-by on the bulge of the major galaxy over the course of the trajectory. At different time steps of the evolution, we did two-dimensional fittings of disk, bulge and bar to trace the variation in the sersic index of the bulge. Our results suggest that galaxy bulges can become boxy/disky through flyby interactions of galaxies.

The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). IV. Characterizing Substructures and Interactions in Disks around Multiple Star Systems

Abstract To characterize the substructures induced in protoplanetary disks by the interaction between stars in multiple systems, we study the 1.25 mm continuum and the 12CO(J = 2–1) spectral line emission of the triple systems HT Lup and AS 205, at scales of ≈5 au, as part of the “Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project” (DSHARP). In the continuum emission, we find two symmetric spiral arms in the disk around AS 205 N, with a pitch angle of 14°, while the southern component AS 205 S, itself a spectroscopic binary, is surrounded by a compact inner disk and a bright ring at a radius of 34 au. The 12CO line exhibits clear signatures of tidal interactions, with spiral arms, extended arc-like emission, and high velocity gas, possible evidence of a recent close encounter between the disks in the AS 205 system, as these features are predicted by hydrodynamic simulations of flyby encounters. In the HT Lup system, we detect continuum emission from all three components. The primary disk, HT Lup A, also shows a two-armed symmetric spiral structure with a pitch angle of 4°, while HT Lup B and C, located at 25 and 434 au in projected separation from HT Lup A, are barely resolved with ∼5 and ∼10 au in diameter, respectively. The gas kinematics for the closest pair indicates a different sense of rotation for each disk, which could be explained by either a counter rotation of the two disks in different, close to parallel, planes, or by a projection effect of these disks with a close to 90° misalignment between them.

Stellar-mass black holes in young massive and open stellar clusters and their role in gravitational-wave generation III: dissecting black hole dynamics

Stellar-remnant black holes (BH) in dense stellar clusters comprise a natural setup to trigger general-relativistic (GR) inspiral and merger of binary black holes (BBH), detectable by the LISA and the LIGO-Virgo, through dynamical encounters inside such environments. In this work, the intricacies of such dynamical interactions are probed utilizing realistic, self-consistent, post-Newtonian, direct N-body evolutionary models of young massive and open stellar clusters. Particularly, the configurations of the compact subsystems, that drive the in-cluster GR BBH coalescences, are tracked on the fly. Such an approach reveals that the GR coalescences within the open clusters take place primarily via chaotic interactions involving triple BH systems. Although less frequently, such mergers are found to happen also in higher-order subsystems such as quadruples and in subsystems involving non-BH members; the mergers can themselves be BH – non-BH, which events would leave electromagnetic signatures. Close, fly-by encounters inside the clusters can also make BBHs and other types of double-compact binaries temporarily post-Newtonian; such binaries would potentially contribute to the GW background for the LISA and the PTA. These calculations, furthermore, suggest that open clusters are potential hosts for not only detached BH – main-sequence binaries, as recently identified in the globular cluster NGC 3201, but also a wide variety of other types of remnant – non-remnant binaries, which are assembled via dynamical interactions inside the clusters and which have the prospects of being discovered in radial-velocity surveys.

Probabilistic resident space object detection using archival THEMIS fluxgate magnetometer data

Recent progress in the detection of small space objects, at geosynchronous altitudes, through ground-based optical and radar measurements is demonstrated as a viable method. However, in general, these methods are limited to detection of objects greater than 10 cm. This paper examines the use of magnetometers to detect plausible flyby encounters with charged space objects using a matched filter signal existence binary hypothesis test approach. Relevant data-set processing and reduction of archival fluxgate magnetometer data from the NASA THEMIS mission is discussed in detail. Using the proposed methodology and a false alarm rate of 10%, 285 plausible detections with probability of detection greater than 80% are claimed and several are reviewed in detail.

Extraction of amino acids from aerogel for analysis by capillary electrophoresis. Implications for a mission concept to Enceladus' Plume.

Ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus in the outer solar system are prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth. Enceladus is particularly interesting due to the presence of a water plume ejecting from the south polar region. The recent discovery of H2 in the plume, in addition to the presence of previously observed organic compounds, highlights the possibility of life in this moon. The plume provides materials from the underlying ocean that could be collected simply by flying through it. The presence of the plume means that material from the ocean is available for collection during a flyby, without the need for landing or complex sample handling operations such as scooping or drilling. An attractive approach to preserve the organics in particles collected during flyby encounters would be to utilize silica aerogel, the material used to collect particles at hypervelocity during the Stardust mission. Here we demonstrate amino acids can be extracted from aerogel simply by adding water. This simple liquid extraction method could be implemented during a mission prior to analysis with a liquid-based technique like capillary electrophoresis.

Dynamical formation and scattering of hierarchical triples: cross-sections, Kozai–Lidov oscillations, and collisions

Dynamical scattering of binaries and triple systems of stars, planets, and compact objects may produce highly inclined triple systems subject to Kozai-Lidov (KL) oscillations, potentially leading to collisions, mergers, Type Ia supernovae, and other phenomena. We present the results of more than 400 million gravitational scattering experiments of binary-binary, triple-single, and triple-binary scattering. We compute the cross sections for all possible outcomes and explore their dependencies on incoming velocity, mass, semi-major axis, and eccentricity, including analytic fits and discussion of the velocity dependence. For the production of new triple systems by scattering we find that compact triples are preferred, with ratios of outer to inner semi-major axes of ~few--100, flat or quasi-thermal eccentricity distributions, and flat distributions in cosine of the mutual inclination. Dynamically formed triples are thus subject to strong KL oscillations, the "eccentric Kozai mechanism," and non-secular effects. For single and binary flyby encounters with triple systems, we compute the cumulative cross section for changes to the mutual inclination, eccentricity, and semi-major axis ratio. We apply these results to scattering events in the field, open clusters, and globular clusters, and explore the implications for Type Ia supernovae via collisions and mergers, stellar collisions, and the lifetime and dynamical isolation of triple systems undergoing KL oscillations. An Appendix provides an analysis of the velocity dependence of the collision cross section in binary-single scattering.

FLY-BY ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN DARK MATTER HALOS IN COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATIONS

Gravitational interactions - mergers and fly-by encounters - between galaxies play a key role as the drivers of their evolution. Here we perform a cosmological N-body simulation using the tree-particle-mesh code GOTPM, and attempt to separate out the effects of mergers and fly-bys between dark matter halos. Once close pair halos are identified by the halo finding algorithm PSB, they are classified into mergers (<TEX>$E_{12}$</TEX> < 0) and fly-by encounters (<TEX>$E_{12}$</TEX> > 0) based on the total energy (<TEX>$E_{12}$</TEX>) between two halos. The fly-by and merger fractions as functions of redshift, halo masses, and ambient environments are calculated and the result shows the following.(1) Among Milky-way sized halos (<TEX>$0.33-2.0{\times}10^{12}h^{-1}M{\odot}$</TEX>), <TEX>$5.37{\pm}0.03%$</TEX> have experienced major fly-bys and <TEX>$7.98{\pm}0.04%$</TEX> have undergone major mergers since z ~ 1; (2) Among dwarf halos (<TEX>$0.1-0.33{\times}10^{12}h^{-1}M{\odot}$</TEX>), <TEX>$6.42{\pm}0.02%$</TEX> went through major fly-bys and <TEX>$9.51{\pm}0.03%$</TEX> experienced major mergers since z ~ 1; (3) Milky-way sized halos in the cluster environment experienced fly-bys (mergers) 4-11(1.5-1.7) times more frequently than those in the field since z ~ 1; and (4) Approaching z = 0, the fly-by fraction decreases sharply with the merger fraction remaining constant, implying that the empirical pair/merger fractions (that decrease from z ~ 1) are in fact driven by the fly-bys, not by the mergers themselves.

Calcium-rich gap transients: tidal detonations of white dwarfs?

We hypothesize that at least some of the recently discovered class of calcium-rich gap transients are tidal detonation events of white dwarfs (WDs) by black holes (BHs) or possibly neutron stars. We show that the properties of the calcium-rich gap transients agree well with the predictions of the tidal detonation model. Under the predictions of this model, we use a follow-up X-ray observation of one of these transients, SN 2012hn, to place weak upper limits on the detonator mass of this system that include all intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs). As these transients are preferentially in the stellar haloes of galaxies, we discuss the possibility that these transients are tidal detonations of WDs caused by random flyby encounters with IMBHs in dwarf galaxies or globular clusters. This possibility has been already suggested in the literature but without connection to the calcium-rich gap transients. In order for the random flyby cross-section to be high enough, these events would have to be occurring inside these dense stellar associations. However, there is a lack of evidence for IMBHs in these systems, and recent observations have ruled out all but the very faintest dwarf galaxies and globular clusters for a few of these transients. Another possibility is that these are tidal detonations caused by three-body interactions, where a WD is perturbed toward the detonator in isolated multiple star systems. We highlight a number of ways this could occur, even in lower-mass systems with stellar-mass BHs or neutron stars. Finally, we outline several new observational tests of this scenario, which are feasible with current instrumentation.

Improved detection of tides at Europa with radiometric and optical tracking during flybys

Due to its eccentric orbit about Jupiter, Europa experiences periodic tidal deformation, which causes changes in its gravitational field and induces both radial and transverse displacements of the surface. The amplitude and phase of these tidal changes are diagnostic of internal structure, and can be measured with sufficient radiometric and optical tracking of a spacecraft during a series of flyby encounters with Europa. This paper presents results of the simulated accuracy for recovery of the tides of Europa through measuring the second-degree tidal Love numbers k2, h2, and l2. A reference trajectory, which consists of a total of 45 close flybys, was considered and a detailed covariance analysis was performed. The study was based on Earth-based Doppler tracking during ±2h of each periapsis passage and surface imaging data taken below 500km altitude. The result shows that the formal uncertainty of the second-degree tidal Love numbers can be estimated to be σk2=0.01, σh2=0.02, and σl2=0.01, which is sufficient to constrain the global ice thickness to about 10km under reasonable assumptions. Moreover, the forced librations of Europa can be measured to 0.3″ accuracy, which can further constrain Europa's interior structure.