Rawiraswattana, K., Hubber, D.A. and Goodwin, S.P. (2016) Discs in misaligned binary systems. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 460 (4). pp. 3505-3518. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
We perform SPH simulations to study precession and changes in alignment between the circumprimary disc and the binary orbit in misaligned binary systems. We find that the precession process can be described by the rigid-disc approximation, where the disc is considered as a rigid body interacting with the binary companion only gravitationally. Precession also causes change in alignment between the rotational axis of the disc and the spin axis of the primary star. This type of alignment is of great important for explaining the origin of spin-orbit misaligned planetary systems. However, we find that the rigid-disc approximation fails to describe changes in alignment between the disc and the binary orbit. This is because the alignment process is a consequence of interactions that involve the fluidity of the disc, such as the tidal interaction and the encounter interaction. Furthermore, simulation results show that there are not only alignment processes, which bring the components towards alignment, but also anti-alignment processes, which tend to misalign the components. The alignment process dominates in systems with misalignment angle near 90°, while the anti-alignment process dominates in systems with the misalignment angle near 0° or 180°. This means that highly misaligned systems will become more aligned but slightly misaligned systems will become more misaligned.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Author(s). Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | accretion; accretion discs; binaries: general; protoplanetary discs; planetary systems. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number LEVERHULME TRUST (THE) IN-2013-017 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 15 Aug 2016 13:34 |
Last Modified: | 25 Oct 2016 05:32 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw1215 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stw1215 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:103746 |