Typical Open Clusters Research Articles

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.

INTERRUPTED STELLAR ENCOUNTERS IN STAR CLUSTERS

Strong encounters between single stars and binaries play a pivotal role in the evolution of star clusters. Such encounters can also dramatically modify the orbital parameters of binaries, exchange partners in and out of binaries, and are a primary contributor to the rate of physical stellar collisions in star clusters. Often, these encounters are studied under the approximation that they happen quickly enough and within a small enough volume to be considered isolated from the rest of the cluster. In this paper, we study the validity of this assumption through the analysis of a large grid of single - binary and binary - binary scattering experiments. For each encounter we evaluate the encounter duration, and compare this with the expected time until another single or binary star will join the encounter. We find that for lower-mass clusters, similar to typical open clusters in our Galaxy, the percent of encounters that will be "interrupted" by an interloping star or binary may be 20-40% (or higher) in the core, though for typical globular clusters we expect <1% of encounters to be interrupted. Thus, the assumption that strong encounters occur in relative isolation breaks down for certain clusters. Instead, many strong encounters develop into more complex "mini-clusters", which must be accounted for in studying, for example, the internal dynamics of star clusters, and the physical stellar collision rate.

Formation of young massive clusters from turbulent molecular clouds

Abstract Young massive clusters are as young as open clusters but more massive and compact compared with typical open clusters. The formation process of young massive clusters is still unclear, and it is an open question whether the formation process is the same for typical open clusters or not. We perform a series of N-body simulations starting from initial conditions constructed from the results of hydrodynamical simulations of turbulent molecular clouds. In our simulations, both open clusters and young massive clusters form when we assume a density-dependent star-formation efficiency. We find that a local star-formation efficiency higher than 50% is necessary for the formation of young massive clusters, but open clusters form from less dense regions with a local star formation efficiency of &amp;lt; 50%. We confirm that the young massive clusters formed in our simulations have mass, size, and density profile similar to those of observed young massive clusters such as NGC 3603 and Trumpler 14. We also find that these simulated clusters evolve via hierarchical mergers of sub-clusters within a few mega years, as is suggested by recent simulations and observations. Although we do not assume initial mass segregation, we observe that the simulated massive clusters show a shallower slope of the mass function (Γ ∼ −1) in the cluster center compared to that of the entire cluster (Γ ∼ −1.3). These values are consistent with those of some young massive clusters in the Milky Way such as Westerlund 1 and Arches.

Gemini spectroscopy of the outer disk star cluster BH176

BH176 is an old metal-rich star cluster. It is spatially and kinematically consistent with belonging to the Monoceros Ring. It is larger in size and more distant from the Galactic plane than typical open clusters, and it does not belong to the Galactic bulge. Our aim is to determine the origin of this unique object by accurately determining its distance, metallicity, and age. The best way to reach this goal is to combine spectroscopic and photometric methods. We present medium-resolution observations of red clump and red giant branch stars in BH176 obtained with the Gemini South Multi-Object Spectrograph.We derive radial velocities, metallicities, effective temperatures, and surface gravities of the observed stars and use these parameters to distinguish member stars from field objects. We determine the following parameters for BH176: $V_h= 0\pm 15$ km/s, $[Fe/H]=-0.1\pm 0.1$, age $7\pm 0.5$ Gyr, $E(V-I)=0.79\pm 0.03$, distance $ 15.2\pm 0.2$ kpc, $\alpha$-element abundance $[\alpha/Fe] \sim 0.25$ dex (the mean of [Mg/Fe], and [Ca/Fe]). BH176 is a member of old Galactic open clusters that presumably belong to the thick disk. It may have originated as a massive star cluster after the encounter of the forming thin disk with a high-velocity gas cloud or as a satellite dwarf galaxy.

The birth and death of star clusters in the Milky Way

Simple though admittedly speculative considerations explain why most of our galaxy’s stellar nurseries are highly fragile but a few survive for a remarkably long time.

DETAILED CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES OF FOUR STARS IN THE UNUSUAL GLOBULAR CLUSTER PALOMAR 1

Detailed chemical abundances for twenty one elements are presented for four red giants in the anomalous outer halo globular cluster Palomar 1 ($R_{\rm{GC}} = 17.2$ kpc, $Z=3.6$ kpc) using high-resolution (R=36000) spectra from the High Dispersion Spectrograph (HDS) on the Subaru Telescope. Pal 1 has long been considered unusual because of its low surface brightness, sparse red giant branch, young age, and its possible association with two extragalactic streams of stars---this paper shows that its chemistry further confirms its unusual nature. The mean metallicity of the four stars, $[\rm{Fe/H}] = -0.60 \pm 0.01$, is high for a globular cluster so far from the Galactic center, but is low for a typical open cluster. The [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios, though in agreement with the Galactic stars within the $1\sigma$ errors, agree best with the lower values in dwarf galaxies. No signs of the Na/O anticorrelation are detected in Pal 1, though Na appears to be marginally high in all four stars. Pal 1's neutron capture elements are also unusual: its high [Ba/Y] ratio agrees best with dwarf galaxies, implying an excess of second-peak over first-peak s-process elements, while its [Eu/$\alpha$] and [Ba/Eu] ratios show that Pal 1's contributions from the r-process must have differed in some way from normal Galactic stars. Therefore, Pal 1 is chemically unusual, as well in its other properties. Pal 1 shares some of its unusual abundance characteristics with the young clusters associated with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy remnant and the intermediate-age LMC clusters, and could be chemically associated with the Canis Majoris overdensity; however it does not seem to be similar to the Monoceros/Galactic Anticenter Stellar Stream.

The effects of fly-bys on planetary systems

Most of the observed extrasolar planets are found on tight and often eccentric orbits. The high eccentricities are not easily explained by planet-formation models, which predict that planets should be on rather circular orbits. Here we explore whether fly-bys involving planetary systems with properties similar to those of the gas giants in the Solar system can produce planets with properties similar to the observed planets. Using numerical simulations, we show that fly-bys can cause the immediate ejection of planets, and sometimes also lead to the capture of one or more planets by the intruder. More common, however, is that fly-bys only perturb the orbits of planets, sometimes leaving the system in an unstable state. Over time-scales of a few million to several hundred million years after the fly-by, this perturbation can trigger planet–planet scatterings, leading to the ejection of one or more planets. For example, in the case of the four gas giants of the Solar system, the fraction of systems from which at least one planet is ejected more than doubles in 108 yr after the fly-by. The remaining planets are often left on more eccentric orbits, similar to the eccentricities of the observed extrasolar planets. We combine our results of how fly-bys affect Solar-system-like planetary systems, with the rate at which encounters in young stellar clusters occur. For example, we measure the effects of fly-bys on the four gas giants in the Solar system. We find, that for such systems, between 5 and 15 per cent suffer ejections of planets in 108 yr after fly-bys in typical open clusters. Thus, encounters in young stellar clusters can significantly alter the properties of any planets orbiting stars in clusters. As a large fraction of stars which populate the solar neighbourhood form in stellar clusters, encounters can significantly affect the properties of the observed extrasolar planets.

The embedded cluster DBSB 48 in the nebula Hoffleit 18: Comparison with Trumpler 14

We derive fundamental parameters of the embedded cluster DBSB 48 in the southern nebula Hoffleit 18 and the very young open cluster Trumpler 14, by means of deep JHK s infrared photometry. We build colour–magnitude and colour–colour diagrams to derive reddening and age, based on main sequence and pre-main sequence distributions. Radial stellar density profiles are used to study cluster structure and guide photometric diagram extractions. Field-star decontamination is applied to uncover the intrinsic cluster sequences in the diagrams. Ages are inferred from K-excess fractions. A prominent pre-main sequence population is present in DBSB 48, and the K-excess fraction f K = 55 ± 6% gives an age of 1.1 ± 0.5 Myr. A mean reddening of A K s = 0.9 ± 0.03 was found, corresponding to A V = 8.2 ± 0.3. The cluster CMD is consistent with the far kinematic distance of 5 kpc for Hoffleit 18. For Trumpler 14 we derived similar parameters as in previous studies in the optical, in particular an age of 1.7 ± 0.7 Myr. The fraction of stars with infrared excess in Trumpler 14 is f K = 28 ± 4%. Despite the young ages, both clusters are described by a King profile with core radii R core = 0.46 ± 0.05 pc and R core = 0.35 ± 0.04 pc, respectively, for DBSB 48 and Trumpler 14. Such cores are smaller than those of typical open clusters. Small cores are probably related to the cluster formation and/or parent molecular cloud fragmentation. In DBSB 48, the magnitude extent of the upper main sequence is Δ K s ≈ 2 mag, while in Trumpler 14 it is Δ K s ≈ 5 mag, consistent with the estimated ages.

Capture and induced disk accretion in young star encounters

view Abstract Citations (91) References (66) Co-Reads Similar Papers Volume Content Graphics Metrics Export Citation NASA/ADS Capture and Induced Disk Accretion in Young Star Encounters Ostriker, Eve C. Abstract Young stars display evidence of moderately massive, centrifugally supported, gaseous, and dusty circumstellar disks. These disks are highly susceptible to compressional and transverse disturbances. Such density and bending waves may be excited by tidal forces from external gravitational perturbers, including passing, initially unbound stars. The energy and angular momentum exchange between the two-body orbit and the disk permits capture of passing stars on near-parabolic orbits, and can cause disk accretion. We compute energy and angular momentum transfer for near-parabolic orbits with periastron xmin beyond two disk radii rD, as a function of relative disk-orbit angles, using linear perturbation theory. We present both numerical evaluation of the integrations and asymptotic analytic results. These are used to compute capture rates and induced accretion rates in stellar clusters. We find that for encounters with xmin near 2rD, the disk angular momentum is reduced by a few to several percent (angle-averaged), with prograde, coplanar orientations yielding reductions by more than 10%. For typical open cluster parameters, the capture probability is less than 0.1% at xmin approximately 2rD; for most orientations energy is actually given to the perturber, rather than the reverse. Capture is permitted only for polar and retrograde encounters, and even then is unlikely. In particular, the asymptotic analytic results (large xmin/rD limit) for resonant transfer predict that the disk's energy change will be positive for inclinations greater than 101.5 deg, with the maximum, positive value at inclination 117 deg only 1% of the (negative) disk energy change at zero inclination. Both the angular momentum transfer and the capture probability drop off with increasing xmin/rD, first as an exponential and then as a power law. We explain this behavior in terms of the ratio of perturbed angular velocity to disk angular velocities, and the spectrum of allowed resonances. We compare our results on star/disk-star encounters with other capture calculations, and find that many of the same considerations also apply to star-star encounters and galaxy-galaxy encounters. Publication: The Astrophysical Journal Pub Date: March 1994 DOI: 10.1086/173890 Bibcode: 1994ApJ...424..292O Keywords: Accretion Disks; Binary Stars; Interstellar Matter; Perturbation Theory; Pre-Main Sequence Stars; Stellar Envelopes; Angular Momentum; Celestial Mechanics; Stellar Mass Accretion; Stellar Orbits; Astrophysics; ACCRETION; ACCRETION DISKS; CELESTIAL MECHANICS; STELLAR DYNAMICS; STARS: BINARIES: GENERAL; STARS: CIRCUMSTELLAR MATTER; STARS: PRE--MAIN-SEQUENCE full text sources ADS |

The Velocity Distribution and the Masses of Stars from the Proper Motions in the Stellar Clusters

The velocity distribution for the stars of different masses in the typical open cluster was calculated, the velocity variations having been considered as a purely discontinuous random process. the comparison of calculated and observed mean square velocities for the different groups of stars in the Hyades cluster enables us to estimate the mean mass of the stars in the each group.