The Orbital Evolution of the Exoplanets

JOURNAL OF OCCULTATION AND ECLIPSE (JOE); ISSN 2522-7955; No. 1, 2014

A. TajalliArdekani¹, M. Jahan-Miri²

¹Department of Physics, Shiraz University, Iran; Email: azadeh.tajalli@yahoo.com

²Department of Physics, Shiraz University, Iran; Email: jahan@physics.sucs.ac.ir

Abstract

In this article, we report the results of our calculation for the orbital evolution of a Jupiter-like planet around the host star for a range of initial stellar masses. It is found that planetary orbits are affected by the structure evolution of the host star, all the way up to the tip of the Red Giant Branch (RGB). We find that the tidal interaction can lead to the engulfment of close-in planets by evolved stars. Moreover, it is seen that the effect is pronounced in the case of the moremassive planets and/or the lighter stars. These results may explain the observed semi-major axis distribution of the planets found around evolved stars having masses larger than.

Keywords: Exoplanets, Planetary systems - Stars, Evolved star, Tidal force