Austrian Early Career Conference 2024

Contribution:
Talk

Authors:
Santiago Torres

Affiliations:
Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)

Title:
The Dynamical Evolution of Planets Orbiting Interacting Binaries

Abstract:
15% of solar-type stars are in such close binaries that interaction is bound to occur as the stars evolve and swell. Only ten planets have been detected orbiting binary systems. This suggests that dynamical processes play a key role in the evolution of circumbinary planetary systems. Understing the interaction between the bodies in such complex systems is important for planet formation and binary evolution. The tightest orbit binaries should host the most stable and, therefore, long-lived circumbinary planetary systems. Still, they are also the systems that are expected to experience mass transfer, common envelope evolution, or stellar mergers. Subdwarfs are one of the most common types of products resulting from binary evolution. They are both long-lived and easy to recognize. Understanding the impact of subdwarf formation on the surrounding planetary system, therefore, constitutes one of the most promising avenues for revealing how binary evolution, in general, affects planetary systems. 
In order to disentangle the dynamic evolution of planets around evolved and interacting binaries, we developed an integration framework that seamlessly integrates the binary evolution data from the stellar evolution code MESA into a detailed N-body simulation code REBOUND. To ensure numerical robustness, we constructed a binary star model and introduced a recalibration method to mitigate errors from updates of binary properties during dynamical computations. We reveal that the nearest stable orbital separation for circumbinary planets is roughly 2.5 times the binary separation after mass transfer. In this talk, I will present our new method, model and latest results of the evolution of planets whose host binary evolves into a subdwarf system.