Large Dynamical Tide Amplitudes from Small Kicks at Pericenter

Abstract

The effect of dynamical tide ``kicks" on eccentric binary orbits is considered using the orbital mapping method. It is demonstrated that when mode damping is negligible the mode amplitude will generically grow in time for all values of orbital eccentricity and semi-major axis, even for small kicks outside the regime exhibiting diffusive growth. The origin of the small-kick growth is the change in kick size from orbit to orbit, an effect quadratic in the mode amplitude. When damping of the mode is included, the growth is shut off when the damping time is shorter than the growth time. Hence, in practice, kicks of sufficient size and long mode damping times are required for interesting levels of growth to occur. Application to the circularization of hot Jupiters is discussed. Previous investigations found that diffusive growth of the planetary f-mode in the large-kick regime would lead to rapid orbital shrinkage, but upon exiting the diffusive regime at $e \sim 0.9$ the theory would predict a large population of highly eccentric orbits. Simulations presented here show that subsequent orbital evolution relying on the small-kick regime may further decrease the eccentricity to $e \sim 0.2$ on timescales much less than the Gyrs ages of these systems.