  The extrasolar planets discovered to date possess unexpected orbital
elements. Most orbit their host stars with larger eccentricities and smaller
semi-major axes than similarly sized planets in our own solar system do. It is
generally agreed that the interaction between giant planets and circumstellar
disks (Type II migration) drives these planets inward to small radii, but the
effect of these same disks on orbital eccentricity, e, is controversial.
Several recent analytic calculations suggest that disk-planet interactions can
excite eccentricity, while numerical studies generally produce eccentricity
damping. This paper addresses this controversy using a quasi-analytic approach,
drawing on several preceding analytic studies. This work refines the current
treatment of eccentricity evolution by removing several approximations from the
calculation of disk torques. We encounter neither uniform damping nor uniform
excitation of orbital eccentricity, but rather a function de/dt that varies in
both sign and magnitude depending on eccentricity and other solar system
properties. Most significantly, we find that for every combination of disk and
planet properties investigated herein, corotation torques produce negative
values of de/dt for some range in e within the interval [0.1, 0.5]. If
corotation torques are saturated, this region of eccentricity damping
disappears, and excitation occurs on a short timescale of less than 0.08 Myr.
Thus, our study does not produce eccentricity excitation on a timescale of a
few Myr -- we obtain either eccentricity excitation on a short time scale, or
eccentricity damping on a longer time scale. Finally, we discuss the
implications of this result for producing the observed range in extrasolar
planet eccentricity.
