Accretion disks around Jupiter and Saturn at the stage of regular satellite formation

Abstract

Modern models of the formation of the regular satellites of giant planets, constructed with consideration for their structure and composition suggest that this process lasted for a considerable period of time (0.1–1 Myr) and developed in gas-dust circumplanetary disks at the final stage of giant planet formation. The parameters of protosatellite disks (e.g., the radial distribution of surface density and temperature) serve as important initial conditions for such models. Therefore, the development of protosatellite disk models that take into account currently known cosmochemical and physical restrictions remains a pressing problem. It is this problem that is solved in the paper. New models of the accretion disks of Jupiter and Saturn were constructed with consideration for the disk heating by viscous dissipation of turbulent motions, by accretion of material from the surrounding region of the solar nebula, and by radiation from the central planets. The influence of a set of input model parameters (the total rate of mass infall onto the disk, the turbulent viscosity and opacity of disk material, and the centrifugal radius of the disk) on thermal conditions in the accretion disks was studied. The dependence of opacity on temperature and the abundance and size of solid particles present in the disk was taken into account. Those constructed models that satisfy the existing constraints limit the probable values of input parameters (primarily rates of mass infall onto the disks of Jupiter and Saturn at the stage of regular satellite formation and, to a lesser extent, the disk opacities). Constraints on the location of the regions of formation of the major satellites of Jupiter and Saturn are suggested based on the constructed models and simple analytical estimates concerning the formation of satellites in the accretion disks. It is shown that Callisto and Titan could hardly be formed at significantly greater distances from their planets.