Habitable planet formation around low-mass stars: Rapid accretion, rapid debris removal and the essential contribution of external giants

Abstract

In recent years a paradigm shift has occurred in exoplanet science, wherein low-mass stars are increasingly viewed as a foundational pillar of the search for potentially habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood. However, the formation processes of this rapidly accumulating sample of planet systems are still poorly understood. Moreover, it is unclear whether tenuous primordial atmospheres around these Earth-analogs could have survived the intense epoch of heightened stellar activity that is typical for low-mass stars. We present new simulations of in-situ planet formation across the M-dwarf mass spectrum, and derive leftover debris populations of small bodies that might source delayed volatile delivery. We then follow the evolution of this debris with high-resolution models of real systems of habitable zone planets around low-mass stars such as TRAPPIST-1, Proxima Centauri and TOI-700. While debris in the radial vicinity of the habitable zone planets is removed rapidly, thus making delayed volatile delivery highly unlikely, we find that material ubiquitously scattered into an exo-asteroid belt region during the planet formation process represents a potentially lucrative reservoir of icy small bodies. Thus, the presence of external ~Neptune-Saturn mass planets capable of dynamically perturbing these asteroids would be a sign that habitable zone worlds around low-mass stars might have avoided complete desiccation. However, we also find that such giant planets significantly limit the efficiency of asteroidal implantation during the planet formation process. In the coming decade, long-baseline radial velocity studies and Roman Space Telescope microlensing observations will undoubtedly further constrain this process.

arXiv comment19 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (126)

• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: New Estimates
• Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1
• New evolutionary models for pre-main sequence and main sequence low-mass stars down to the hydrogen-burning limit
• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• Towards a Deterministic Model of Planetary Formation I: a Desert in the Mass and Semi Major Axis Distributions of Extra Solar Planets
• A simple model for the evolution of the dust population in protoplanetary disks
• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: Dependence on Planetary Mass
• Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
• The Occurrence Rate of Small Planets around Small Stars
• The Solar Neighborhood XVII: Parallax Results from the CTIOPI 0.9m Program -- Twenty New Members of the RECONS 10 Parsec Sample
• Planet formation around stars of various masses: The snow line and the frequency of giant planets
• Building Terrestrial Planets
• The Minimum-Mass Extrasolar Nebula: In-Situ Formation of Close-In Super-Earths
• Making other Earths: Dynamical Simulations of Terrestrial Planet Formation and Water Delivery
• Core-Accretion Model Predicts Few Jovian-Mass Planets Orbiting Red Dwarfs
• Building the Terrestrial Planets: Constrained Accretion in the Inner Solar System
• Breaking the Chains: Hot Super-Earth systems from migration and disruption of compact resonant chains
• Kepler Flares I. Active and Inactive M dwarfs
• High-resolution simulations of the final assembly of Earth-like planets 1: terrestrial accretion and dynamics
• A seven-planet resonant chain in TRAPPIST-1
• The nature of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets
• Formation of the Terrestrial Planets from a Narrow Annulus
• A Revised Exoplanet Yield from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
• An Earth-sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Cool Star
• Proxima's orbit around Alpha Centauri
• About 30% of Sun-like Stars Have Kepler-like Planetary Systems: A Study of their Intrinsic Architecture
• A Detailed Model Grid for Solid Planets from 0.1 through 100 Earth Masses
• Water loss from Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of ultracool dwarfs: Implications for the planets of TRAPPIST-1
• Atmospheric reconnaissance of the habitable-zone Earth-sized planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1
• Dynamics of pebbles in the vicinity of a growing planetary embryo: hydro-dynamical simulations
• A decreased probability of habitable planet formation around low-mass stars
• A combined transmission spectrum of the Earth-sized exoplanets TRAPPIST-1 b and c
• First order resonance overlap and the stability of close two planet systems
• They are Small Worlds After All: Revised Properties of Kepler M Dwarf Stars and their Planets
• Six transiting planets and a chain of Laplace resonances in TOI-178
• N-body simulations of planetary accretion around M dwarf stars
• Growing the terrestrial planets from the gradual accumulation of sub-meter sized objects
• Bayesian search for low-mass planets around nearby M dwarfs. Estimates for occurrence rate based on global detectability statistics
• Formation of TRAPPIST-1 and other compact systems
• High-resolution simulations of the final assembly of Earth-like planets 2: water delivery and planetary habitability
• Dynamical erosion of the asteroid belt and implications for large impacts in the inner solar system
• Mars' Growth Stunted by an Early Giant Planet Instability
• From planetesimals to terrestrial planets: N-body simulations including the effects of nebular gas and giant planets
• Planet-planet scattering in planetesimal disks II: Predictions for outer extrasolar planetary systems
• The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs -- Planet occurrence rates from a subsample of 71 stars
• Merging Criteria for Giant Impacts of Protoplanets
• Abundant Circumstellar Silica Dust and SiO Gas Created by a Giant Hypervelocity Collision in the ~12 Myr HD172555 System
• Formation of dust-rich planetesimals from sublimated pebbles inside of the snow line
• Dynamical Evidence for a Late Formation of Saturn's Moons
• Predictions of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Galactic Exoplanet Survey II: Free-Floating Planet Detection Rates
• The Frequency of Giant impacts on Earth-like Worlds
• Spitzer Parallax of OGLE-2015-BLG-0966: A Cold Neptune in the Galactic Disk
• Revisiting Proxima with ESPRESSO
• The Delivery of Water During Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Planet-planet scattering in planetesimal disks
• Planets Formed in Habitable Zones of M Dwarf Stars Probably are Deficient in Volatiles
• A reassessment of the in situ formation of close-in super-Earths
• Temporal evolution of the high-energy irradiation and water content of TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets
• Convergent Migration Renders TRAPPIST-1 Long-lived
• The early instability scenario: terrestrial planet formation during the giant planet instability, and the effect of collisional fragmentation
• The First Habitable Zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. I: Validation of the TOI-700 System
• The GENGA Code: Gravitational Encounters in N-body simulations with GPU Acceleration
• Onset of giant planet migration before 4480 million years ago
• Disentangling the planet from the star in late type M dwarfs: A case study of TRAPPIST-1g
• Terrestrial Planet Formation Constrained by Mars and the Structure of the Asteroid Belt
• Formation of close-in super-Earths in evolving protoplanetary disks due to disk winds
• Compositional evolution during rocky protoplanet accretion
• Formation of Giant Planet Satellites
• Tidal evolution of planets around brown dwarfs
• The equilibrium size-frequency distribution of small craters reveals the effects of distal ejecta on lunar landscape morphology
• Warm Debris Disks Produced by Giant Impacts During Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Chaotic Disintegration of the Inner Solar System
• Pebble-driven planet formation for TRAPPIST-1 and other compact systems
• Late veneer and late accretion to the terrestrial planets
• Pebbles versus Planetesimals: The case of Trappist-1
• The TRAPPIST-1 system: Orbital evolution, tidal dissipation, formation and habitability
• Pebble Accretion and the Diversity of Planetary Systems
• Prograde rotation of protoplanets by accretion of pebbles in a gaseous environment
• Planetesimals to Terrestrial Planets: collisional evolution amidst a dissipating gas disk
• Dynamical and collisional constraints on a stochastic late veneer on the terrestrial planets
• Impact bombardment chronology of the terrestrial planets from 4.5 Ga to 3.5 Ga
• Mercurian impact ejecta: Meterorites and mantle
• The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs - HD 147379b: A nearby Neptune in the temperate zone of an early-M dwarf
• Diverse outcomes of planet formation and composition around low-mass stars and brown dwarfs
• The Role of Early Giant Planet Instability in the Terrestrial Planet Formation
• An ancient and a primordial collisional family as the main sources of X-type asteroids of the inner Main Belt
• Excitation and depletion of the asteroid belt in the early instability scenario
• Planet-Planet Occultations in TRAPPIST-1 and Other Exoplanet Systems
• Cometary impactors on the TRAPPIST-1 planets can destroy all planetary atmospheres and rebuild secondary atmospheres on planets f, g, h
• The excitation of a primordial cold asteroid belt as an outcome of the planetary instability
• The Asteroid Belt as a Relic From a Chaotic Early Solar System
• The Absence of Cold Dust and the Mineralogy and Origin of the Warm Dust Encircling BD +20 307
• The Diversity of Planetary Systems Architectures: Contrasting Theory with Observations
• The First Habitable Zone Earth-Sized Planet From TESS II: $Spitzer$ Confirms TOI-700 d
• Habitability of waterworlds: runaway greenhouses, atmospheric expansion and multiple climate states of pure water atmospheres
• Orbital inclination and mass of the exoplanet candidate Proxima c
• An upper limit on late accretion and water delivery in the Trappist-1 exoplanet system
• Analytic Models of Brown Dwarfs and The Substellar Mass Limit
• Search for Nearby Earth Analogs. II. detection of five new planets, eight planet candidates, and confirmation of three planets around nine nearby M dwarfs
• Plausible Compositions of the Seven TRAPPIST-1 Planets Using Long-term Dynamical Simulations
• Do the TRAPPIST-1 Planets Have Hydrogen-rich Atmospheres?
• Growing Mars fast: High-resolution GPU simulations of embryo formation
• The Effect of Planets Beyond the Ice Line on the Accretion of Volatiles by Habitable-Zone Rocky Planets
• Dynamical Constraints on Mercury's Collisional Origin
• A Minimum Mass Nebula for M Dwarfs
• Evolution of the Earth's Atmosphere during Late Veneer Accretion
• Building the Galilean moons system via pebble accretion and migration: A primordial resonant chain
• Search for Nearby Earth Analogs. III. Detection of ten new planets, three planet candidates, and confirmation of three planets around eleven nearby M dwarfs
• Keeping M-Earths Habitable in the Face of Atmospheric Loss by Sequestering Water in the Mantle
• Obliquity Variations of Habitable Zone Planets Kepler-62f and Kepler-186f
• The Planet Formation Potential Around a 45 Myr old Accreting M Dwarf
• Water delivery to the TRAPPIST-1 planets
• Global Analysis of the TRAPPIST Ultra-Cool Dwarf Transit Survey
• Extreme Variability of the V488 Persei Debris Disk
• Solar System Moons as Analogs for Compact Exoplanetary Systems
• The early instability scenario: Mars' mass explained by Jupiter's orbit
• $Spitzer$ Parallax of OGLE-2018-BLG-0596: A Low-mass-ratio Planet around an M-dwarf
• Ejection of close-in super-Earths around low-mass stars in the giant impact stage
• Obliquity Evolution of the Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Kepler-62f
• Astrometric Constraints on the Masses of Long-Period Gas Giant Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 Planetary System
• In Situ Models for Planet Assembly around Cool stars
• Planetary Embryo Collisions and the Wiggly Nature of Extreme Debris Disks
• Atmospheric Evolution on Low-gravity Waterworlds
• OGLE-2015-BLG-1670Lb: A Cold Neptune beyond the Snow Line in the Provisional WFIRST Microlensing Survey Field
• Water transport throughout the TRAPPIST-1 system: the role of planetesimals

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Super-Earths and Earth-like Exoplanets
• Reduced late bombardment on rocky exoplanets around M-dwarfs
• Measuring the Obliquities of the TRAPPIST-1 Planets with MAROON-X
• Can comets deliver prebiotic molecules to rocky exoplanets?
• Born Dry or Born Wet? A Palette of Water Growth Histories in TRAPPIST-1 Analogs and Compact Planetary Systems
• Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). XIV. Finding terrestrial protoplanets in the galactic neighborhood
• Characterizing planetary systems with SPIRou: a temperate sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting the nearby fully-convective star GJ 1289 and a candidate around GJ 3378
• Protoplanet collisions: new scaling laws from SPH simulations