Rapid Formation of Gas-giant Planets via Collisional Coagulation from Dust Grains to Planetary Cores

Gas-giant planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, and massive exoplanets, were formed via the gas accretion onto the solid cores, each with a mass of roughly 10 Earth masses. However, rapid radial migration due to disk-planet interaction prevents the formation of such massive cores via planetesimal accretion. Comparably rapid core growth via pebble accretion requires very massive protoplanetary disks because most pebbles fall into the central star. Although planetesimal formation, planetary migration, and gas-giant core formation have been studied with a lot of effort, the full evolution path from dust to planets is still uncertain. Here we report the result of full simulations for collisional evolution from dust to planets in a whole disk. Dust growth with realistic porosity allows the formation of icy planetesimals in the inner disk (less than or similar to 10 au), while pebbles formed in the outer disk drift to the inner disk and there grow to planetesimals. The growth of those pebbles to planetesimals suppresses their radial drift and supplies small planetesimals sustainably in the vicinity of cores. This enables rapid formation of sufficiently massive planetary cores within 0.2-0.4 million years, prior to the planetary migration. Our models shows the first gas giants form at 2-7 au in rather common protoplanetary disks, in agreement with the exoplanet and solar systems.

Automated summary

Research shows that the collisional evolution from dust to planetesimals can lead to the rapid formation of sufficiently massive gas-giant planetary cores in rather common protoplanetary disks before planetary migration.