On the Formation Timescale and Core Masses of Gas Giant Planets

2003/10/07 by Ken Rice, W. K. M. Rice, Philip J. Armitage · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrobiology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Exoplanet #Formation and evolution of the Solar System #Gas giant #Giant planet #Jupiter (rocket family) #Jupiter mass #Physics #Planet #Planetary mass #Planetary migration #Planetary system #Planetesimal #Protoplanet #Protoplanetary disk #Solar System #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/380390

published as Astrophys.J. 598 (2003) L55 · ApJL, in press

arxiv created 2003/10/07 · openalex publication_date 2003/10/31 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Numerical simulations show that the migration of growing planetary cores may be dominated by turbulent fluctuations in the protoplanetary disk, rather than by any mean property of the flow. We quantify the impact of this stochastic core migration on the formation timescale and core mass of giant planets at the onset of runaway gas accretion. For standard solar nebula conditions, the formation of Jupiter can be accelerated by almost an order of magnitude if the growing core executes a random walk with an amplitude of a few tenths of an AU. A modestly reduced surface density of planetesimals allows Jupiter to form within 10 Myr, with an initial core mass below 10 M ⊕ , in better agreement with observational constraints. For extrasolar planetary systems, the results suggest that core accretion could form massive planets in disks with lower metallicities, and shorter lifetimes, than the solar nebula.

Citations

• Gap Formation by Planets in Turbulent Protostellar Disks
• Critical Protoplanetary Core Masses in Protoplanetary Disks and the Formation of Short‐Period Giant Planets
• Using FU Orionis outbursts to constrain self-regulated protostellar disk models
• Formation of the Giant Planets
• Disk Frequencies and Lifetimes in Young Clusters
• Stopping inward planetary migration by a toroidal magnetic field
• Orbital migration and the frequency of giant planet formation

Cited by

• Accretion of terrestrial planets from oligarchs in a turbulent disk
• Induced planet formation in stellar clusters: a parameter study of star-disc encounters
• Planetesimal Accretion onto Growing Proto–Gas Giant Planets
• The Effect of Jupiter's Formation on the Distribution of Refractory Elements and Inclusions in Meteorites