Might A Hot Jupiter Require Another Gas Giant - 3-body Problem?

zankaon

How might hot jupiters arrrive close in, since gas sufficient for their formation would be seem to be further outward? It might seem to require a 3-body 'solution'. That is, must another gas giant have been in the mix for much earlier stages? Perhaps ejecting 1 giant, and retaining the other in a tight orbit? 3-body problems can result in chaotic motion. But still, through simulations, might one conjure up various possible scenarios of how 1 gas giant ends up in a tight orbit?

n-body problem wikipedia
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem"]
google: 3-body problem

Shooting Star

That is an ingenious idea. But what makes you think that Jupiter is too close for a gas giant to form? Have you done any rough calculations?

zankaon

If tight orbital hot jupiters are the result of a 3-body or n-body process, in which some are ejected from system, and some migrate into large orbits; then perhaps a dedicated infrared telescope for finding the latter gas giants or brown dwarf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf The targets would be discrete infrared luminous objects, as opposed to dust and background; also one would have motion against background. Hence increasing the exoplanet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanets database with another viable detection modality?

tony873004

The planets probably migrated as a result of ejecting trillions of smaller objects, rather than 1 massive object.

zankaon

Our Ort cloud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ort_cloud has trillions of objects, although the total mass is not that high; perhaps 3 earth masses; although the ejected material (from our gas giant interaction) might have been much more (50-100 earth masses) Yet we don't have a tight orbital hot jupiter in our system.