Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationCurrent technology and theoretical methods are allowing for the detection of sub-Earth sized extrasolar planets. In addition, the detection of massive moons orbiting extrasolar planets ("exomoons") has become feasible and searches are currently underway. Several extrasolar planets have now been discovered in the habitable zone (HZ) of their parent star. This naturally leads to questions about the habitability of moons around planets in the HZ. Red dwarf stars present interesting targets for habitable planet detection. Compared to the Sun, red dwarfs are smaller, fainter, lower mass, and much more numerous. Due to their low luminosities, the HZ is much closer to the star than for Sun-like stars. For a planet-moon binary in the HZ, the close proximity of the star presents dynamical restrictions on the stability of the moon, forcing it to orbit close to the planet to remain gravitationally bound. Under these conditions the effects of tidal heating, distortion torques, and stellar perturbations become important considerations to the habitability of an exomoon. Utilizing an evolution model that considers both dynamical and tidal interactions, I performed a computational investigation into long-term evolution of exomoon systems. My study focused on satellite systems in the HZ of red dwarf stars and the dependence of exomoon habitability on the mass of the central star. Results show that dwarf stars with masses < 0.2 M© cannot host habitable exomoons within the stellar HZ due to extreme tidal heating in the moon. These results suggest that a host planet could be located outside the stellar HZ to where higher tidal heating rates could act to promote habitability for an otherwise uninhabitable moon. Perturbations from a central star may continue to have deleterious effects in the HZ up to « 0.5 MSun, depending on the host planet's mass and its location in the HZ. In cases with lower intensity tidal heating, stellar perturbations may have a positive influence on exomoon habitability by promoting long-term heating rates above a minimum for habitable terrestrial environments. In addition to heating concerns, torques due to tidal and spin distortion can lead to the relatively rapid inward spiraling of a moon. The effects of torque and stability constraints also make it unlikely that long-term resonances between two massive moons will develop in the HZs around red dwarf stars. My study showed that moons in the circumstellar HZ are not necessarily habitable by definition. In addition, the HZ for an exomoon may extend beyond the HZ for an exoplanet. Therefore, an extended model is required when considering exomoon habitability in comparison to exoplanet habitability

Exomoon Habitability and Tidal Evolution in Low-Mass Star Systems

Discoveries of extrasolar planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of their parent star lead to questions about the habitability of massive moons orbiting planets in the HZ. Around low-mass stars, the HZ is much closer to the star than for Sun-like stars. For a planet-moon binary in such a HZ, the proximity of the star forces a close orbit for the moon to remain gravitationally bound to the planet. Under these conditions the effects of tidal heating, distortion torques, and stellar perturbations become important considerations for exomoon habitability. Utilizing a model that considers both dynamical and tidal interactions simultaneously, we performed a computational investigation into exomoon evolution for systems in the HZ of low-mass stars ($\lesssim 0.6\ M_{\odot}$). We show that dwarf stars with masses $\lesssim 0.2\ M_{\odot}$ cannot host habitable exomoons within the stellar HZ due to extreme tidal heating in the moon. Perturbations from a central star may continue to have deleterious effects in the HZ up to $\approx 0.5\ M_{\odot}$, depending on the host planet's mass and its location in the HZ, amongst others. In addition to heating concerns, torques due to tidal and spin distortion can lead to the relatively rapid inward spiraling of a moon. Therefore, moons of giant planets in HZs around the most abundant type of star are unlikely to have habitable surfaces. In cases with lower intensity tidal heating the stellar perturbations may have a positive influence on exomoon habitability by promoting long-term heating and possibly extending the HZ for exomoons.Comment: accepted by MNRAS, 20 pages, 8 figures in main text (7 col, 1 b/w

Specific Angular Momentum of Extrasolar Planetary Systems

Angular momentum in our solar system is largely distributed between the Sun’s rotation and the planetary orbits, with most of it residing in the orbital angular momentum of Jupiter. By treating the solar system as a two body central potential between the Sun and Jupiter, one can show that the orbital specific angular momentum of the two-body system exceeds the solar rotational specific angular momentum by nearly two orders of magnitude. We extend this analysis to the known extrasolar planets available in the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia and estimate the partitioning of each system’s angular momentum into orbital and rotational components, ignoring the spin angular momentum of the planets. We find the range of partitioning of specific angular momentum in these systems to be large, with some systems near the stellar rotational limit, and others with orbital specific angular momentum exceeding this limit by three orders of magnitude. Planets in systems with high specific angular momentum have masses greater than two Jupiter masses, while those in systems with low specific angular momentum are below two Jupiter masses. This leads to the conclusion that low mass planets lose angular momentum more efficiently, and are thus more prone to migration, than larger mass planets