So, I have a double-planet system in a solar system and I'd like to analyze the long-term evolution of these two planets. In particular, I'd like to know:
- Is this setup unrealistic in some way? The expectation is that this solar system exists in it's current state after about 1 to 2 billion years of stellar evolution.
- How would the system be most likely to change in the future?
The double planet in question sits around 1.84 AU from the parent star. One is an ocean planet of .803 Earth masses with a radius of 5721 km and the other is a Venusian world of 1.21 Earth masses with a radius of 6976 km. They orbit a barycenter in a 47.65 hour period with a SMA of 84250 km between them. The system eccentricity is .011.
Edit: All rotations are prograde.
Now, with objects of similar mass like this, it is my understanding that they will move towards being tidally locked. However, this is not necessarily an automatic process. So, I have these bodies currently set up as not being tidally locked. The ocean world has a rotational period of 15.3 hours and the Venusian world has a rotational period of 45.7 hours. (Part of what I would like to know is whether this state of the system is reasonable. I would also like to hear what initial circumstances would be necessary for these planets to arrive in this pattern.)
As for tidal dynamics, I've calculated the tides on the ocean world to average around 3 km in height, so some friction is likely to be caused there, however only 3% of the surface of the planet is land, so I feel like this friction might be lessened overall. The Venusian world has no water, but a very active mantle, so there might be tidal forces impacting it as well.
So, what I'm looking for is how would these forces impact the evolution of these two planets. They would move towards being tidally locked, but what would be the main driving force making them do so and on what time frames would it take place? What would the stable-state of this system look like?
Potentially relevant information: The central star is an F-type main sequence star, at 1.421 stellar masses and a luminosity 3.42 times that of the sun. In the inner system (Around .07 AU out) there is a hot Jupiter of about 2/3 Jupiter masses. In the outer system (around 13 AU out) there is another gas giant, this one at around 2.5 Jupiter masses.
Three possibilities: There are three main avenues that I can see.
- Rotation to Heat - The two planets could both slow down due to tidal acceleration, the energy being converted to heat through friction, until their rotational periods match.
- Potential to Heat - Potential energy could be translated into internal heating making them drift together until their orbital period is fast enough that their rotational periods can easily match it. This would also be likely combined with option 1.
- Rotation to Potential - We could have a repeat of the Earth-Moon system where rotational energy is translated into potential energy, making them drift apart as they spin down.
Which of these three is most likely? Would there perhaps be a mixture of the three or a fourth option I've not yet considered?
Edit 1 - Final Semimajor Axis
With the information provided by Logan R Kearsley below, I've been able to make another pass at this. I've calculated the angular momentum of the system to be $3.87273\ast10^{35}$ $\frac{m^2kg}{s}$. Then I took the equation Logan provided and the equation
$$r_1=\frac{a}{1+\frac{1.21}{0.803}}$$
Which gives $r_1$ (the distance from the larger body to the barycenter) given $a$ (the semimajor axis between the bodies). Using these two together I was able to find that the semimajor axis of the final system would be $2135020+1416880=3551900$ $km$. I'm currently unsure if this would be close enough for the bodies to stay in each other's influence.
Edit 2 - Time Period
Alright, using the equation on the Wikipedia page Logan pointed out in the comments below, estimating $Q$ as 100 and $k_2$ as .3 (close to that of Earth), I arrived at an estimate of about 400 years for the ocean planet to become tidally locked to the Venusian world and about 250 years for the Venusian world to become locked the the ocean world. Obviously, even if these estimates were off by a factor of 1000, they would become locked to each other very quickly on a geological time scale. This is less than desirable, so I might have to go back to the drawing board for this pair of planets.