Formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems

行星系统的形成和动力学演化

• 批准号: 42927-2009
• 负责人: Duncan, Martin
• 金额: $ 3.28万
• 依托单位: Queen's University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=544944
• 关键词: Formation; dynamical; evolution; planetary; systems

How typical is our Solar System? The issue of how planetary systems form and dynamically evolve is one of the oldest unsolved problems in astronomy. In the past decade, remarkable observational clues have been found including i) thousands of icy bodies in vast reservoirs beyond Neptune, ii) numerous planet-forming disks of gas and dust around newly forming stars and iii) hundreds of unusual planetary systems around many nearby mature stars. These discoveries challenge many aspects of what had become the "standard model" of planet formation, requiring, for example, mechanisms to create the intricately disturbed structure in the cometary region beyond Neptune and to affect not only the eccentricities ("shapes") of orbits but to induce spiralling inward or outward of planets in our own system and those around other stars. It is still widely believed, however, that the cores of most planets are formed from the accumulation of much smaller bodies similar to comets and asteroids. Due to the generally chaotic nature of their dynamics, the most powerful theoretical method for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of such systems is to construct computer models to numerically follow the orbits of large numbers of gravitationally interacting bodies for millions to billions of years, including the effects of interactions with the gas disk and/or physical collisions among the bodies. Many of the problems I am studying with my students and collaborators utilize a very efficient computer software package called SWIFT, originally developed by H. Levison (SouthWest Research Institute) and me, and widely used internationally. We are incorporating a variety of methods to more efficiently model the interaction of growing planets with a population of smaller bodies and are now poised to tackle pressing problems that have been hitherto computationally intractable. These include extensive simulations of the formation of giant planets and simulations of the influence on the cometary reservoirs beyond Neptune of the planet-building process and the stellar nursery in which the Sun formed.

我们的太阳系有多典型？行星系统如何形成和动态发展的问题是天文学中最古老的未解决问题之一。在过去的十年中，已经发现了显着的观察线索，包括i）海王星以外的巨大水库中成千上万的冰冷物体，ii）众多新形成的星星周围的气体和灰尘构成了巨大的行星圆盘，以及数百个附近许多成熟恒星周围的数百个不寻常的行星系统。 这些发现挑战了已成为行星形成的“标准模型”的许多方面，例如，需要机制在神经之外的彗星区域中创造出错综复杂的结构，并不仅会影响轨道的怪异（“形状”），而且会诱导我们自身系统和其他恒星的行星螺旋形的螺旋形螺旋形成。 然而，仍然可以广泛认为，大多数行星的岩心是由类似于彗星和小行星类似的较小物体的积累而形成的。 由于其动力学的普遍混乱性，理解这种系统的形成和动态演化的最强大的理论方法是构建计算机模型，以数值遵循数百万到数十亿年的大量重力相互作用体的轨道，包括与体内气盘和/或物理碰撞的相互作用。 我与学生和合作者一起研究的许多问题都使用了一个非常有效的计算机软件包，称为Swift，最初由H. Levison（西南研究所）和ME开发，并在国际上广泛使用。 我们正在合并多种方法，以更有效地对生长行星与较小物体的相互作用进行建模，现在有望解决迄今为止计算上棘手的紧迫问题。 这些包括对巨型行星形成的大量模拟以及对行星建造过程中海王星之外的彗星储层的影响以及太阳形成的恒星托儿所的影响。