Exoplanet Orbital Distribution Around FGK Sun-like Host Stars II: A Valley In The Orbital Semi-major Axis Distribution Of Sub-Neptunes

More than one hundred years ago, physics has been revolutionized when people realized that electronic orbitals, or electromagnetic interactions in general, are quantized. Now, in this study, we are presenting evidence of quantization of planet orbits around stars. Confining a wave in spatial dimensions “quantizes” its wave number.

Therefore, this study points to the evidence of the existence of long-range standing waves in the proto-planetary disks. Such waves, although being on a much larger scale of few tens of AU, have already been found by ALMA observation-so called ring-like structure.

Now we see that it may exist within 1 AU, and may exert its effect on the existence and distribution of planets within this distance range to the host star. Careful analysis has been carried out to compare the results of different surveys.

Li Zeng, Stephanie C. Werner, Stein B. Jacobsen, Elena Mamonova, Reidar G. Trønnes, Ramon Brasser

Comments: submitted to MNRAS. comments welcome! 🙂
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2604.08428 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2604.08428v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.08428
Focus to learn more
Submission history
From: Li Zeng
[v1] Thu, 9 Apr 2026 16:32:40 UTC (3,092 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.08428
Astrobiology, Exoplanet, Stellar Cartography,