Orbital stability of S-type circumbinary planets

Abstract

Nowadays, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered, including a hundred of circumbinary planets. In the following work, the orbital variations of 67 S-type circumbinary planets have been studied. Their orbital evolutions for a thousand years are simulated using the REBOUND package. The published physical and orbital parameters of the systems are used to computed the systems' orbital instability limits: Roche limit and Hill's sphere. From 67 systems, there are two unstable circumbinary systems: Kepler-420 and GJ 86. Kepler-420 Ab orbit passes into the system's Roche limit due to its high orbital eccentricity. For GJ 86 Ab, the planet orbits outside its Hill's sphere. The instability of GJ 86 Ab might be caused by an inaccurate measurement of GJ 86 A physical parameters. Using the GJ 86 A mass obtained from Farihi et al., the planet orbits in the stable orbit zone.