2004/03/15 by Y. Alibert, C. Mordasini, W. Benz · 14 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20040053
published as Astron.Astrophys. 417 (2004) L25-L28 · 9 pages, 2 figures, published in A&A Letters
openalex publication_date 2004/03/15 · arxiv created 2004/03/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We extend the core-accretion model of giant gaseous planets by Pollack et al. ([CITE]) to include migration, disc evolution and gap formation. Starting with a core of a fraction of an Earth's mass located at 8 AU, we end our simulation with the onset of runaway gas accretion when the planet is at 5.5 AU 1 Myr later. This timescale is about a factor ten shorter than the one found by Pollack et al. ([CITE]) even though the disc was less massive initially and viscously evolving. Other initial conditions can lead to even shorter timescales. The reason for this speed-up is found to result from the fact that a moving planet does not deplete its feeding zone to the extend of a static planet. Thus, the uncomfortably long formation timescale associated with the core-accretion scenario can be considerably reduced and brought in much better agreement with the typical disc lifetimes inferred from observations of young circumstellar discs.