Dynamical Stability of Terrestrial Planets

13 years after the first discovery of an extrasolar planet more than 300 such planets are known. They are mostly massive gas giants like Jupiter due to the detection methods. In the next future astronomers try to find also terrestrial planets orbiting other stars with the help of various ground based and space missions (e.g. MOST, CoRoT, Kepler, GAIA, SIM, Darwin or TPF). To achieve this ambitious scientific objective many of the closest stars have to be observed from ground and space with different detection methods. The main goals of this project will be an investigation of the dynamical stability of potential additional terrestrial planets in nearby extrasolar planetary systems. Although there exists global stability studies of this kind for some known extrasolar planetary systems, as well as detailed studies for specific systems, a profound dynamical study of the 37 systems in the target catalogue is still missing. In this study the following items will be analysed: 1. Apart from the known planets, is it possible for additional planets to move inside the region of the habitable zone (This is the zone in which liquid water is possible on the surface of a terrestrial planet orbiting a star = HZ)? 2. Where are the areas of nearly circular motion or of moderate eccentricities in the HZ, so that the terrestrial planets would not leave the HZ in Apoastron or Periastron position? 3. In which planetary systems, where the gas giant moves in the HZ can terrestrial planets in the same orbit (coorbital planets) be expected? All the investigations need time consuming numerical integrations as well as sophisticated methods of analysis (chaos indicators) to study the stability of the orbits. The final goal is to publish a catalogue with the dynamical profiles of all extrasolar planetary systems with known planets within a distance of 30 pc. There, we will discuss for each extrasolar planetary system the dynamical behaviour of terrestrial planets in habitable zones, by studying the orbits and the masses of the planets. Special attention will be paid to the role of the resonances acting in the HZ. Therefore this project provides an important basis for the search for terrestrial planets with further space or ground based missions.