Evidence for universality in the initial planetesimal mass function

Abstract

Planetesimals may form from the gravitational collapse of dense particle clumps initiated by the streaming instability. We use simulations of aerodynamically coupled gas-particle mixtures to investigate whether the properties of planetesimals formed in this way depend upon the sizes of the particles that participate in the instability. Based on three high resolution simulations that span a range of dimensionless stopping time $6\times 10^{-3}\le \tau \le 2$ no statistically significant differences in the initial planetesimal mass function are found. The mass functions are fit by a power-law, $\mathrm{d}N/\mathrm{d}{M}_p\propto M_p^{-p}$, with $p=1.5-1.7$ and errors of $\Delta p\approx 0.1$. Comparing the particle density fields prior to collapse, we find that the high wavenumber power spectra are similarly indistinguishable, though the large-scale geometry of structures induced via the streaming instability is significantly different between all three cases. We interpret the results as evidence for a near-universal slope to the mass function, arising from the small-scale structure of streaming-induced turbulence.

7 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ Letters after minor modifications, including two new figures and some new text that better clarify our results

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• Power-law distributions in empirical data
• Athena: A New Code for Astrophysical MHD
• How to form planetesimals from mm-sized chondrules and chondrule aggregates
• Initial mass function of planetesimals formed by the streaming instability

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