Formation of Super-Earth Mass Planets at 125-250 AU from a Solar-type Star

Abstract

We investigate pathways for the formation of icy super-Earth mass planets orbiting at 125-250 AU around a 1 solar mass star. An extensive suite of coagulation calculations demonstrates that swarms of 1 cm to 10 m planetesimals can form super-Earth mass planets on time scales of 1-3 Gyr. Collisional damping of 0.01-100 cm particles during oligarchic growth is a highlight of these simulations. In some situations, damping initiates a second runaway growth phase where 100-3000 km protoplanets grow to super-Earth sizes. Our results establish the initial conditions and physical processes required for in situ formation of super-Earth planets at large distances from the host star. For nearby dusty disks in HD 107146, HD 202628, and HD 207129, ongoing super-Earth formation at 80-150 AU could produce gaps and other structures in the debris. In the solar system, forming a putative planet X at a < 300 AU (a > 1000 AU) requires a modest (very massive) protosolar nebula.

48 pages of text, 23 figures, ApJ in press, revised version contains new text on aspects of the calculations and a more comprehensive description of the origin of the second phase of runaway growth

References in corpus (25)

• The Gemini Planet Imager: First Light
• Protoplanetary Disk Structures in Ophiuchus
• Gas- and dust evolution in protoplanetary disks
• Separating gas-giant and ice-giant planets by halting pebble accretion
• Toward a Deterministic Model of Planetary Formation V. Accumulation Near the Ice Line
• Variations on Debris Disks: Icy Planet Formation at 30-150 AU for 1-3 Solar Mass Main Sequence Stars
• Steady-State Size Distributions for Collisional Populations: Analytical Solution with Size-Dependent Strength
• Full Numerical Simulations of Catastrophic Small Body Collisions
• Can grain growth explain transition disks?
• Recovery of the Candidate Protoplanet HD 100546 b with Gemini/NICI and Detection of Additional (Planet-Induced?) Disk Structure at Small Separations
• The Mass Budget of Planet Forming Discs: Isolating the Epoch of Planetesimal Formation
• A Hybrid N-body--Coagulation Code for Planet Formation
• Extreme trans-Neptunian objects and the Kozai mechanism: signalling the presence of trans-Plutonian planets
• Collisional and Thermal Emission Models of Debris Disks: Towards Planetesimal Population Properties
• ALMA observations of the debris disk around the young Solar Analog HD 107146
• Planet X revamped after the discovery of the Sedna-like object 2012 VP${}_{113}$?
• Models of the Collisional Damping Scenario for Ice Giant Planets and Kuiper Belt Formatio
• The Fate of Scattered Planets
• $N$-body Simulation of Planetesimal Formation Through Gravitational Instability of a Dust Layer
• Fomalhaut b as a Cloud of Dust: Testing Aspects of Planet Formation Theory
• A Resolved Ring of Debris Dust Around the Solar Analog HD 107146
• A dearth of small particles in debris disks: An energy-constrained smallest fragment size
• A Deep Spitzer Survey of Circumstellar Disks in the Young Double Cluster, h and chi Persei
• Debris disc formation induced by planetary growth
• Constraints on planet X/Nemesis from Solar System's inner dynamics

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Numerical Simulations of Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• New Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects: Towards a Super-Earth in the Outer Solar System
• Dawes Review. The tidal downsizing hypothesis of planet formation
• Numerical Simulations of Gaseous Disks Generated from Collisional Cascades at the Roche Limits of White Dwarf Stars
• ALMA 1.3 Millimeter Map of the HD 95086 System
• From Pebbles and Planetesimals to Planets and Dust: the Protoplanetary Disk--Debris Disk Connection
• The Effect of Protoplanetary Disk Cooling Times on the Formation of Gas Giant Planets by Gravitational Instability
• Finding Planet Nine: apsidal anti-alignment Monte Carlo results
• Circularizing Planet Nine through dynamical friction with an extended, cold planetesimal belt
• Evidence for a possible bimodal distribution of the nodal distances of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects: avoiding a trans-Plutonian planet or just plain bias?
• Herschel Observations and Updated Spectral Energy Distributions of Five Sunlike Stars with Debris Disks
• Binary stripping as a plausible origin of correlated pairs of extreme trans-Neptunian objects
• Peculiar orbits and asymmetries in extreme trans-Neptunian space
• Very-wide-orbit planets from dynamical instabilities during the stellar birth cluster phase
• Memories of past close encounters in extreme trans-Neptunian space: Finding unseen planets using pure random searches
• Dynamical Stability of Polar Circumbinary Orbits and Planet-Formation in Planetary Disc of 99 Herculis