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E. W. Thommes (University of California, Berkeley), J. J. Lissauer (NASA Ames Research Center)
The observed orbits of extrasolar planets suggest that many giant planets migrate a considerable distance towards their parent star as a result of interactions with the protoplanetary disk, and that some of these planets become trapped in eccentricity-exciting mean motion resonances with one another during this migration. Using three-dimensional numerical simulations, we show that resonant migration can also systematically excite large orbital inclinations in pairs of giant planets. Such a mechanism may not be uncommon in the early evolution of a planetary system, and a significant fraction of exoplanetary systems may turn out to be non-coplanar. In fact, non-coplanar embedded planets have already been invoked as an explanation for the warped disk of Beta Pictoris.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #4
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.