Evidence of an Upper Bound on the Masses of Planets and Its Implications for Giant Planet Formation

2018/01/18 by Kevin C. Schlaufman · 163 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Brown dwarf #Dwarf planet #Exoplanet #Formation and evolution of the Solar System #Gas giant #Giant planet #Jupiter mass #Minimum mass #Physics #Planet #Planetary mass #Planetary migration #Planetary system #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.EP #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa961c

published in The Astrophysical Journal 853(1), 37 (IOP Publishing) · 20 pages, 4 figures, and 2 tables in aastex61 format; accepted for publication in ApJ

arxiv created 2018/01/18 · openalex publication_date 2018/01/20 · arxiv updated 2018/02/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Abstract Celestial bodies with a mass of have been found orbiting nearby stars. It is unknown whether these objects formed like gas-giant planets through core accretion or like stars through gravitational instability. I show that objects with orbit metal-rich solar-type dwarf stars, a property associated with core accretion. Objects with do not share this property. This transition is coincident with a minimum in the occurrence rate of such objects, suggesting that the maximum mass of a celestial body formed through core accretion like a planet is less than . Consequently, objects with orbiting solar-type dwarf stars likely formed through gravitational instability and should not be thought of as planets. Theoretical models of giant planet formation in scaled minimum-mass solar nebula Shakura–Sunyaev disks with standard parameters tuned to produce giant planets predict a maximum mass nearly an order of magnitude larger. To prevent newly formed giant planets from growing larger than , protoplanetary disks must therefore be significantly less viscous or of lower mass than typically assumed during the runaway gas accretion stage of giant planet formation. Either effect would act to slow the Type I/II migration of planetary embryos/giant planets and promote their survival. These inferences are insensitive to the host star mass, planet formation location, or characteristic disk dissipation time.

Citations

• Seven transiting hot-Jupiters from WASP-South, Euler and TRAPPIST: WASP-47b, WASP-55b, WASP-61b, WASP-62b, WASP-63b, WASP-66b & WASP-67b
• THE DEUTERIUM-BURNING MASS LIMIT FOR BROWN DWARFS AND GIANT PLANETS
• Model-Based Clustering, Discriminant Analysis, and Density Estimation
• DEUTERIUM BURNING IN MASSIVE GIANT PLANETS AND LOW-MASS BROWN DWARFS FORMED BY CORE-NUCLEATED ACCRETION
• TrES-1: The Transiting Planet of a Bright K0 V Star
• HAT-P-4b: A metal-rich low-density transiting hot Jupiter
• Growth of Jupiter: Enhancement of core accretion by a voluminous low-mass envelope
• A Transiting Planet of a Sun‐like Star
• Kepler-16: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet
• Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission
• HD 147506b: A Supermassive Planet in an Eccentric Orbit Transiting a Bright Star
• The Exoplanet Orbit Database
• WASP-10b: a 3MJ, gas-giant planet transiting a late-type K star
• Models of giant planet formation with migration and disc evolution
• TrES-3: A Nearby, Massive, Transiting Hot Jupiter in a 31 Hour Orbit
• THE LOW DENSITY TRANSITING EXOPLANET WASP-15b
• Stellar parameters and chemical abundances of 223 evolved stars with and without planets
• The Keck Planet Search: Detectability and the Minimum Mass and Orbital Period Distribution of Extrasolar Planets
• Gravitational Instabilities in Circumstellar Disks
• The SIMBAD astronomical database
• Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission
• WASP-7: A BRIGHT TRANSITING-EXOPLANET SYSTEM IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
• HAT-P-34b-HAT-P-37b: FOUR TRANSITING PLANETS MORE MASSIVE THAN JUPITER ORBITING MODERATELY BRIGHT STARS
• Transiting hot Jupiters from WASP-South, Euler and TRAPPIST: WASP-95b to WASP-101b
• Planet Migration and Gap Formation by Tidally Induced Shocks
• Toward a Deterministic Model of Planetary Formation. IV. Effects of Type I Migration
• Defining and cataloging exoplanets: the exoplanet.eu database
• HAT‐P‐1b: A Large‐Radius, Low‐Density Exoplanet Transiting One Member of a Stellar Binary
• The Planet‐Metallicity Correlation
• XO‐2b: Transiting Hot Jupiter in a Metal‐rich Common Proper Motion Binary
• The 0.5MJ transiting exoplanet WASP-13b
• A DEFINITION FOR GIANT PLANETS BASED ON THE MASS–DENSITY RELATIONSHIP
• Models of Jupiter's growth incorporating thermal and hydrodynamic constraints
• WASP-3b: a strongly irradiated transiting gas-giant planet
• WASP-64b and WASP-72b: two new transiting highly irradiated giant planets
• WASP-23b: a transiting hot Jupiter around a K dwarf and its Rossiter-McLaughlin effect
• WASP-17b: AN ULTRA-LOW DENSITY PLANET IN A PROBABLE RETROGRADE ORBIT
• WASP-54b, WASP-56b, and WASP-57b: Three new sub-Jupiter mass planets from SuperWASP
• Stellar Parameters and Elemental Abundances of Late-G Giants
• WASP-4b: A 12th Magnitude Transiting Hot Jupiter in the Southern Hemisphere
• Precise radial velocities of giant stars

Cited by

• HATS-59b,c: A Transiting Hot Jupiter and a Cold Massive Giant Planet around a Sun-like Star*
• Populating the Milky Way
• A Theoretical Framework for the Mass Distribution of Gas Giant Planets Forming through the Core Accretion Paradigm
• Long-period Jovian Tilts the Orbits of Two sub-Neptunes Relative to Stellar Spin Axis in Kepler-129
• Photometric search for exomoons by using convolutional neural networks
• Exoplanet [wikipedia]

Related

• Formation of giant planets around intermediate-mass stars
• On the formation of super-Jupiters: Core Accretion or Gravitational Instability?
• Formation of Giant Planets
• Formation of Giant Planets
• Forming Giant Planets Around Late-M Dwarfs: Pebble Accretion and Planet-Planet Collision