A Massive Core in Jupiter Predicted from First-Principles Simulations

By B. Militzer, W. Hubbard, J. Vorberger, I. Tamblyn, S. Bonev. 2008

225 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Hydrogen-helium mixtures at conditions of Jupiter’s interior are studied with first-principles computer simulations. The resulting equation of state (EOS) implies that Jupiter possesses a central core of 14-18 Earth masses of heavier elements, a result that supports core accretion as the standard model for the formation of hydrogen-rich giant planets. Our nominal model has about 4 Earth masses of planetary ices in the H-He-rich mantle, a result that is, within a modeling uncertainty of 6 Earth masses, consistent with abundances measured by the 1995 Galileo entry probe mission, suggesting that the composition found by the probe may be representative of the entire planet. Interior models derived from this first-principles EOS do not give a match to Jupiter’s gravity moment J4 unless one invokes interior differential rotation, implying that Jovian interior dynamics has an observable effect on the high-order gravity field.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/677b752842b5c478f777f05defb4a86daa69b307

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Citations in the corpus

THE TWO MODES OF GAS GIANT PLANET FORMATION (2009, background): “The estimated core masses of Jupiter and Saturn (Saumon & Guillot 2004; Militzer et al. 2008), along with the ice giants, support the core accretion mechanism.”
FORMATION AND STRUCTURE OF LOW-DENSITY EXO-NEPTUNES (2011, background): “The effect of uncertainties in the H/He EOS (see e.g., Militzer et al. 2008; Nettelmann et al. 2008) will be small compared to the effect of uncertainties in the heavy element composition and distribution, for the low-mass planets we are considering.”
The Properties of Hydrogen and Helium Under Extreme Conditions (2011, methodology): “…regime and at lower pressures during dissociation, a deviation from SCVH will produce a much larger change – e.g., it is found using a less compressible EOS that Jupiter has a core mass of 14-18 earth masses, much larger than SCVH value of 0-7 earth masses (Guillot, 2005; Militzer et al., 2008).”
Comparing Jupiter interior structure models to Juno gravity measurements and the role of a dilute core (2017, background): “…been made in understanding hydrogen-helium mixtures at planetary conditions [Saumon et al., 1995; Saumon and Guillot, 2004; Vorberger et al., 2007; Militzer et al., 2008; Fortney and Nettelmann, 2010; Nettelmann et al., 2012; Militzer, 2013; Becker et al., 2013; Militzer et al., 2016], but…”
JUPITER MODELS WITH IMPROVED AB INITIO HYDROGEN EQUATION OF STATE (H-REOS.2) (2011, methodology): “Core mass and metallicity of two-layer models The striking difference between the Militzer et al. (2008) (hereafter M08) predictions for the core mass of Jupiter (16 ± 2 M⊕) and that of our group (0–8 M⊕), where both groups applied similar ab initio simulations to generate the EOS data, has…”
Models of Jupiter's growth incorporating thermal and hydrodynamic constraints (2008, unknown): “1, 2 Militzer, B., Hubbard, W. B., Vorberger, J., Tamblyn, I., Bonev, S. A., 2008.”
Formation of Jupiter using opacities based on detailed grain physics (2010, methodology): “Mizuno (1980) constructed models of a protoplanet including both radiative and convective energy transport in the envelope, along with an energy source provided by the planetesimals accreting onto the core at a constant rate, typically Ṁcore = 10 −6 M⊕/yr.”
The Interior Structure, Composition, and Evolution of Giant Planets (2009, methodology): “…molecular dynamics (FVT-MD) to simultaneous simulation of H and He nuclei (100 H and 9 He nuclei in periodic boundary conditions), Militzer et al. (2008) were the first to provide an EOS including H/He mixing effects for a broad range of densities ρ and temperatures T relevant…”
Ab initio simulation of warm dense matter (2019, background): “[8–13] and the outer crust of neutron stars [14, 15].”