No Arabic abstract
The origin of close-in Jovian planets is still elusive. We examine the in-situ gas accretion scenario as a formation mechanism of these planets. We reconstruct natal disk properties from the occurrence rate distribution of close-in giant planets, under the assumption that the occurrence rate may reflect the gas accretion efficiency onto cores of these planets. We find that the resulting gas surface density profile becomes an increasing function of the distance from the central star with some structure at $r simeq 0.1$ au. This profile is quite different from the standard minimum-mass solar nebula model, while our profile leads to better reproduction of the population of observed close-in super-Earths based on previous studies. We compute the resulting magnetic field profiles and find that our profiles can be fitted by stellar dipole fields ($propto r^{-3}$) in the vicinity of the central star and large-scale fields ($propto r^{-2}$) at the inner disk regions, either if the isothermal assumption breaks down or if nonideal MHD effects become important. For both cases, the transition between these two profiles occurs at $r simeq 0.1$ au, which corresponds to the period valley of giant exoplanets. Our work provides an opportunity to test the in-situ gas accretion scenario against disk quantities, which may constrain the gas distribution of the minimum-mass {it extra}solar nebula.
In the standard model of core accretion, the formation of giant planets occurs by two main processes: first, a massive core is formed by the accretion of solid material; then, when this core exceeds a critical value (typically greater than 10 Earth masses) a gaseous runaway growth is triggered and the planet accretes big quantities of gas in a short period of time until the planet achieves its final mass. Thus, the formation of a massive core has to occur when the nebular gas is still available in the disk. This phenomenon imposes a strong time-scale constraint in giant planet formation due to the fact that the lifetimes of the observed protoplanetary disks are in general lower than 10 Myr. The formation of massive cores before 10 Myr by accretion of big planetesimals (with radii > 10 km) in the oligarchic growth regime is only possible in massive disks. However, planetesimal accretion rates significantly increase for small bodies, especially for pebbles, particles of sizes between mm and cm, which are strongly coupled with the gas. In this work, we study the formation of giant planets incorporating pebble accretion rates in our global model of planet formation.
The equation of state calculated by Saumon and collaborators has been adopted in most core-accretion simulations of giant-planet formation performed to date. Since some minor errors have been found in their original paper, we present revised simulations of giant-planet formation that considers a corrected equation of state. We employ the same code as Fortier and collaborators in repeating our previous simulations of the formation of Jupiter. Although the general conclusions of Fortier and collaborators remain valid, we obtain significantly lower core masses and shorter formation times in all cases considered. The minor errors in the previously published equation of state have been shown to affect directly the adiabatic gradient and the specific heat, causing an overestimation of both the core masses and formation times.
We present models for the formation of terrestrial planets, and the collisional evolution of debris disks, in planetary systems that contain multiple unstable gas giants. We previously showed that the dynamics of the giant planets introduces a correlation between the presence of terrestrial planets and debris disks. Here we present new simulations that show that this connection is qualitatively robust to changes in: the mass distribution of the giant planets, the width and mass distribution of the outer planetesimal disk, and the presence of gas in the disk. We discuss how variations in these parameters affect the evolution. Systems with equal-mass giant planets undergo the most violent instabilities, and these destroy both terrestrial planets and the outer planetesimal disks that produce debris disks. In contrast, systems with low-mass giant planets efficiently produce both terrestrial planets and debris disks. A large fraction of systems with low-mass outermost giant planets have stable gaps between these planets that are frequently populated by planetesimals. Planetesimal belts between outer giant planets may affect debris disk SEDs. If Earth-mass seeds are present in outer planetesimal disks, the disks radially spread to colder temperatures. We argue that this may explain the very low frequency of > 1 Gyr-old solar-type stars with observed 24 micron excesses. Among the (limited) set of configurations explored, the best candidates for hosting terrestrial planets at ~1 AU are stars older than 0.1-1 Gyr with bright debris disks at 70 micron but with no currently-known giant planets. These systems combine evidence for rocky building blocks, with giant planet properties least likely to undergo destructive dynamical evolution. We predict an anti-correlation between debris disks and eccentric giant planets, and a positive correlation between debris disks and terrestrial planets.
The formation of the massive young stars surrounding SgrA* is still an open question. In this paper, we simulate the infall of a turbulent molecular cloud towards the Galactic Center (GC). We adopt two different cloud masses (4.3x10^4 and 1.3x10^5 solar masses). We run five simulations: the gas is assumed to be isothermal in four runs, whereas radiative cooling is included in the fifth run. In all the simulations, the molecular cloud is tidally disrupted, spirals towards the GC, and forms a small, dense and eccentric disk around SgrA*. With high resolution simulations, we follow the fragmentation of the gaseous disk. Star candidates form in a ring at ~0.1-0.4 pc from the super-massive black hole (SMBH) and have moderately eccentric orbits (~0.2-0.4), in good agreement with the observations. The mass function of star candidates is top-heavy only if the local gas temperature is high (>~100 K) during the star formation and if the parent cloud is sufficiently massive (>~10^5 solar masses). Thus, this study indicates that the infall of a massive molecular cloud is a viable scenario for the formation of massive stars around SgrA*, provided that the gas temperature is kept sufficiently high (>~100 K).
The discovery of planetary systems outside of the solar system has challenged some of the tenets of planetary formation. Among the difficult-to-explain observations, are systems with a giant planet orbiting a very-low mass star, such as the recently discovered GJ~3512b planetary system, where a Jupiter-like planet orbits an $M$-star in a tight and eccentric orbit. Systems such as this one are not predicted by the core accretion theory of planet formation. Here we suggest a novel mechanism, in which the giant planet is born around a more typical Sun-like star ($M_{*,1}$), but is subsequently exchanged during a dynamical interaction with a flyby low-mass star ($M_{*,2}$). We perform state-of-the-art $N$-body simulations with $M_{*,1}=1M_odot$ and $M_{*,2}=0.1M_odot$ to study the statistical outcomes of this interaction, and show that exchanges result in high eccentricities for the new orbit around the low-mass star, while about half of the outcomes result in tighter orbits than the planet had around its birth star. We numerically compute the cross section for planet exchange, and show that an upper limit for the probability per planetary system to have undergone such an event is $Gammasim 4.4(M_{rm c}/100M_odot)^{-2}(a_{rm p}/{rm AU}) (sigma/1,{rm km},{rm s}^{-1})^{5}$Gyr$^{-1}$, where $a_{rm p}$ is the planet semi-major axis around the birth star, $sigma$ the velocity dispersion of the star cluster, and $M_{rm c}$ the total mass of the star cluster. Hence these planet exchanges could be relatively common for stars born in open clusters and groups, should already be observed in the exoplanet database, and provide new avenues to create unexpected planetary architectures.