Dynamical Evolution and Capture of Planetesimals in the Proto-atmosphere of a Growing Giant Planet

Details Dynamical Evolution and Capture of Planetesimals in the Proto-atmosphere of a Growing Giant Planet Dynamical Evolution and Capture of Planetesimals in the Proto-atmosphere of a Growing Giant Planet

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dda....40.0206h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #40, #2.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.896

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present the results of a study of the interaction of a growing giant planet with a protoplanetary disk, and discuss the efficiency of the capture of planetesimals in planet's contracting gaseous envelop. Both models of giant planet formation, namely the core-accretion and the disk instability scenarios, suggest that prior to the last stage of the formation of giant planets, the cores of these objects are surrounded by extended gaseous envelopes. Given that during giant planet formation, Solar System is populated by km-sized and larger bodies, many of these objects may scatter into such proto-atmospheres where their dynamics are affected by the drag force of the gas. We present the results of an extensive study of the interactions of 1 km to 100 km-sized planetesimals with a contracting proto-atmosphere at the late stage of the formation of a giant planet. Although as expected, the giant planet causes the orbits of many planetesimals in its vicinity to become unstable, our simulations show that still a large number of these objects, in particular those in the feeding zone of the proto-planet, are scattered into its gaseous envelope, where they lose a large fraction of their energies and are captured by the planet's core. Our results indicate that the efficiency of capture is size-dependent and under similar dynamical conditions, is higher for smaller (km-sized) objects. We present the results of our simulations within the context of core-accretion and disk instability models, and discuss the capture-efficiency of planetesimals, and their contribution to the growth of the proto-planet and its enrichment in heavy elements.
Support by NASA Astrobiology Institute under cooperative agreement NNA04CC08A to the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii for NH is acknowledged.

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