Survival of Terrestrial Planets in the Presence of Giant Planet Migration

The presence of "hot Jupiters," Jovian-mass planets with very short orbital periods orbiting nearby main-sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much farther from the parent star. This migration affects the evolution of inner terrestrial planets in these systems. Previous analyses have assumed that no terrestrial planets survive after migration has occurred. We present numerical simulations showing that a significant fraction of terrestrial planets could survive the migration process and possibly return to near circular orbits relatively close to their original positions. A fraction of the final orbits are in the habitable zone, suggesting that planetary systems with close-in giant planets are viable targets for searches for Earth-like habitable planets around other stars.

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