Paper: astro-ph/0512551
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:50:05 GMT (155kb)

Title: On the 2:1 Orbital Resonance in the HD 82943 Planetary System

Authors: Man Hoi Lee (UCSB), R. Paul Butler (Carnegie Inst. of Washington),
Debra A. Fischer (SFSU), Geoffrey W. Marcy (UC Berkeley), and Steven S. Vogt
(UCO/Lick)

Comments: 24 pages, including 10 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ
\\
We present an analysis of the HD 82943 planetary system based on a radial
velocity data set that combines new measurements obtained with the Keck
telescope and the CORALIE measurements published in graphical form. We examine
simultaneously the goodness of fit and the dynamical properties of the best-fit
double-Keplerian model as a function of the poorly constrained eccentricity and
argument of periapse of the outer planet's orbit. The fit with the minimum
chi_{nu}^2 is dynamically unstable if the orbits are assumed to be coplanar.
However, the minimum is relatively shallow, and there is a wide range of fits
outside the minimum with reasonable chi_{nu}^2. For an assumed coplanar
inclination i = 30 deg. (sin i = 0.5), only good fits with both of the lowest
order, eccentricity-type mean-motion resonance variables at the 2:1
commensurability, theta_1 and theta_2, librating about 0 deg. are stable. For
sin i = 1, there are also some good fits with only theta_1 (involving the inner
planet's periapse longitude) librating that are stable for at least 10^8 years.
The libration semiamplitudes are about 6 deg. for theta_1 and 10 deg. for
theta_2 for the stable good fit with the smallest libration amplitudes of both
theta_1 and theta_2. We do not find any good fits that are non-resonant and
stable. Thus the two planets in the HD 82943 system are almost certainly in 2:1
mean-motion resonance, with at least theta_1 librating, and the observations
may even be consistent with small-amplitude librations of both theta_1 and
theta_2.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512551 , 155kb)