Time and Length Scales for Planetary and Satellite Gas Disk Clearing

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6200 Planetology: Solar System Objects (New Field), 6218 Jovian Satellites, 6220 Jupiter, 6280 Saturnian Satellites, 6299 General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

Observationally, the maximum ages of T Tauri stars that show evidence for disks is ˜ 106-10^7 years (Strom et al. 1989). On the other hand, a time of 106-10^7 years is needed for giant planet formation through core accretion depending on gas opacity (Pollack et al. 1996; Hubickyj, private communication). One approach to satisfy these constraints involves matching the planetary formation timescale to the unrelated timescale of disk clearing due to turbulent viscosity. In this model, the above agreement of timescales is a coincidence. In contrast, Goodman and Rafikov (2001) considered the possibility that the acoustic waves launched by small (a few Earth mass) planets introduce an effective viscosity that clears the disk in the required timescale. However, such objects are likely to drift in an be lost due to Type I migration (Ward 1997) before the gas disk (where most of the angular momentum of the system is stored) evolves. Mosqueira and Estrada (2003b) (in the context of satellites, but the same argument would apply to planets; see Mosqueira and Estrada, this conference) advanced a related mechanism involving those objects large enough to stall and open a gap in the disk (Rafikov 2002). Here we investigate the possibility that the tidal torque of planets and giant planet satellites clears the gas disk in which they formed in timescales of ˜ 106 years and ˜ 105 years respectively. Also, such a gas clearing mechanism may only be effective to a distance possibly connected with the region where solids are stranded following gas dissipation ( ˜ 40 AU at the edge of the Kuiper belt for the solar system, and the region where regular satellites are found for satellite systems), i.e., outside this region gas would linger and rocky bodies formed there would be removed by gas drag or tidal torques. This work was supported by the National Research Council and a NASA PGG grant.

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