2025ApJ...979..218L

The two planets of the HAT-P-11 system represent fascinating dynamical puzzles due to their significant eccentricities and orbital misalignments. In particular, HAT-P-11 b is in a close-in orbit in which tides should have circularized well within the age of the system. Here we propose a two-step dynamical process that can reproduce all intriguing aspects of the system. We first invoke planet-planet scattering to generate significant eccentricities and mutual inclinations between the planets. We then propose that this misalignment initiated von-Zeipel-Lidov-Kozai cycles and high-eccentricity migration that ultimately brought HAT-P-11 b to its present-day orbit. We find that this scenario is fully consistent only when significant tidally driven radius inflation is accounted for during the tidal migration. We present a suite of N-body simulations exploring each phase of evolution and show that this scenario is consistent with all observational posteriors and the reported age of the system.