Oligarchic and giant impact growth of terrestrial planets in the presence of gas giant planet migration

Abstract

Giant planets found orbiting close to their central stars, the so-called “hot Jupiters”, are thought to have originally formed in the cooler outer regions of a protoplanetary disk and then to have migrated inward via tidal interactions with the nebula gas. We present the results of N-body simulations which examine the effect such gas giant planet migration has on the formation of terrestrial planets. The models incorporate a 0.5 Jupiter mass planet undergoing type II migration through an inner protoplanet-planetesimal disk, with gas drag included. Each model is initiated with the inner disk being at successively increased levels of maturity, so that it is undergoing either oligarchic or giant impact style growth as the gas giant migrates. In all cases, a large fraction of the disk mass survives the passage of the giant, either by accreting into massive terrestrial planets shepherded inward of the giant, or by being scattered into external orbits. Shepherding is favored in younger disks where there is strong dynamical friction from planetesimals and gas drag is more influential, whereas scattering dominates in more mature disks where dissipation is weaker. In each scenario, sufficient mass is scattered outward to provide for the eventual accretion of a set of terrestrial planets in external orbits, including within the system's habitable zone. This scattering, however, significantly reduces the density of solid material, indicating that further accretion will occur over very long time scales. A particularly interesting result is the generation of massive, short period, terrestrial planets from compacted material pushed ahead of the giant. These planets are reminiscent of the short period Neptune-mass planets discovered recently, suggesting that such “hot Neptunes” could form locally as a by-product of giant planet migration. – astrobiology