Hot Jupiters Have Giant Companions: Evidence for Coplanar High-eccentricity Migration

Abstract

Abstract This study considers the characteristics of planetary systems with giant planets based on a population-level analysis of the California Legacy Survey planet catalog. We identified three characteristics common to hot Jupiters (HJs). First, while not all HJs have a detected outer giant planet companion ( M sin i = 0.3 – 30 M Jup ), such companions are ubiquitous when survey completeness corrections are applied for orbital periods out to 40,000 days. Giant-harboring systems without an HJ also host at least one outer giant planet companion per system. Second, the mass distributions of HJs and other giant planets are indistinguishable. However, within a planetary system that includes an HJ, the outer giant planet companions are at least 3× more massive than the inner HJs. Third, the eccentricity distribution of the outer companions in HJ systems (with an average model eccentricity of 〈 e 〉 = 0.34 ± 0.05) is different from the corresponding outer planets in planetary systems without HJs (〈 e 〉 = 0.19 ± 0.02). We conclude that the existence of two gas giants, where the outermost planet has an eccentricity ≥0.2 and is 3× more massive, are key factors in the production of an HJ. Our simple model based on these factors predicts that ∼10% of warm and cold Jupiter systems will by chance meet these assembly criteria, which is consistent with our measurement of a 16% ± 6% relative occurrence of HJ systems to all giant-harboring systems. We find that these three features favor coplanar high-eccentricity migration as the dominant mechanism for HJ formation.