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Paper: Eccentric Adventures in Circumbinary Disks
Volume: 496, Living Together: Planets, Host Stars and Binaries
Page: 412
Authors: Dunhill, A. C.
Abstract: Circumbinary environments are increasingly of interest to astrophysicists seeking to understand how both star and planet formation mechanisms act. The discovery of numerous circumbinary planets by the Kepler mission indicates that such systems are more common than previously thought, as theory suggests that binary forcing should strongly inhibit planet formation. I present the results of 3-D SPH simulations of circumbinary disks applied to two real systems: Kepler-16 and HD 104237. In the former, summarizing the results published in Dunhill & Alexander (2013), I show how we can use the extremely low eccentricity of the planet Kepler-16b to place a lower limit on the surface density of the disk in which the planet formed. For the latter, I show how the simulations presented in Dunhill et al. (2014) allow us to predict long-term accretion variability timescale for accreting eccentric binaries. I also discuss how the periodic accretion in these systems allows them to preserve their primordial mass ratios.
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