Orbital Stability of Apsidally Aligned Planetary Systems

The dynamical stability of compact planetary systems is known to depend strongly on orbital eccentricities, but the physical role of apsidal alignment remains poorly understood. We investigate this problem using direct N-body simulations by separating planetary eccentricities into a systematic component shared by all planets and a random component that determines the degree of apsidal alignment. We find that these two components play fundamentally different dynamical roles. Random eccentricity destabilizes planetary systems by driving neighboring planet pairs into the regime of mean-motion resonance overlap, leading to chaotic evolution. In contrast, systematic eccentricity has little effect on the instability timescale over a wide range of values because the planetary orbits remain in apsidal alignment, preserving nearly fixed relative orbital orientations despite finite eccentricities. As a result, systems that start in apsidal alignment are nearly as stable as initially circular systems. This protection mechanism has a finite domain of validity. Beyond a critical systematic eccentricity, coherent apsidal precession breaks down, differential precession develops, and the instability timescale decreases rapidly. Our results demonstrate that the long-term stability of compact planetary systems cannot be characterized solely by orbital eccentricities but also depends on the maintenance of coherent apsidal precession, providing a new direction for analytical stability criteria.