Orbital Stability Of Compact Three-planet Systems III. The Role Of Three-body Resonances

Observational surveys show that at least ~ 30% of short-period multiplanetary systems host tightly packed planets, some of which are locked in stable chains of mean-motion resonances.

Despite recent progress, the dynamical stability of these systems remains only partially understood. Numerical simulations have established a general exponential increase in system lifetime with orbital separation, with mean-motion resonances playing a key role in regulating stability.

Tightly packed three-planet systems exhibit a distinctive behavior not seen in higher-multiplicity systems: a small yet significant region of phase space is anomalously stable. This study investigates the dynamics of extremely compact three-planet systems, focusing on anomalously long-lived configurations and their connection to resonant chains observed in exoplanetary systems.

We perform numerical integrations of coplanar, initially circular, equal-mass three-planet systems over stellar-lifetime timescales and at high resolution in orbital separation, and interpret the results in the context of recent analytical work. We identify regions of phase space hosting anomalously stable orbits, including systems surviving multiple orders of magnitude longer than predicted by the exponential trend.

We demonstrate a clear link between stability and isolated three-body mean-motion resonances, showing that extremely compact systems can remain stable when captured into a small subset of isolated zeroth-order resonances. Stability further depends on the initial orbital longitudes and on the interplay between the three-body and two-body resonance networks.

Sacha Gavino, Jack J. Lissauer

Comments: 19 pages, 24 figures, A&A
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2601.20220 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2601.20220v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.20220
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Submission history
From: Sacha Gavino
[v1] Wed, 28 Jan 2026 03:42:42 UTC (15,404 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20220
Astrobiology