Prograde rotation of protoplanets by accretion of pebbles in a gaseous environment

By Anders Johansen, P. A. L. Observatory, Leiden University, Queen's University. 2009

150 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We perform hydrodynamical simulations of the accretion of pebbles and rocks on to protoplanets of a few hundred kilometres in radius, including two-way drag force coupling between particles and the protoplanetary disc gas. Particle streams interacting with the gas within the Hill sphere of the protoplanet spiral into a prograde circumplanetary disc. Material is accreted on to the protoplanet due to stirring by the turbulent surroundings. We speculate that the trend for prograde rotation among the largest asteroids is primordial and that protoplanets accreted 10-50 per cent of their mass from pebbles and rocks during the gaseous solar nebula phase. Our model also offers a possible explanation for the narrow range of spin periods observed among the largest bodies in the asteroid and trans-Neptunian belts, and predicts that 1000-km-scale Kuiper Belt objects that have not experienced giant impacts should preferentially spin in the prograde direction.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b4580b385005bcc5b897957154dbb4732e88766e

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Citations in the corpus

A study of asteroid pole-latitude distribution based on an extended set of shape models derived by the lightcurve inversion method (2011, background): “Johansen & Lacerda (2010) performed a hydrodynamical simulation of the accretion of pebbles and rocks onto protoplanets and speculated that the trend of prograde rotators among the largest asteroids is primordial.”
Rapid growth of gas-giant cores by pebble accretion (2012, methodology): “Accretion occurs through a particle disc, as was previously resolved in high-resolution 2D simulations by Johansen & Lacerda (2010).”
Forming the cores of giant planets from the radial pebble flux in protoplanetary discs (2014, background): “This is due to gas drag operating on pebbles that enter the gravitational reach of a core, resulting in kinetic energy dissipation and accretion (Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010).”
Separating gas-giant and ice-giant planets by halting pebble accretion (2014, unknown): “Previous studies (Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010; Bromley & Kenyon 2011; Lambrechts & Johansen 2012; Morbidelli & Nesvorny 2012) demonstrate that this is the result of gas drag operating on pebbles, which dramatically increases the accretion cross section (Sect.”
The effect of gas drag on the growth of protoplanets. Analytical expressions for the accretion of small bodies in laminar disks (2010, background): “10a to detailed hydrodynamical simulations involving St ∼ 1 particles (Johansen et al. 2007; Johansen & Lacerda 2010).”
The structure of protoplanetary discs around evolving young stars (2014, background): “…by embryos is slower than disc lifetim s (Pollack et al. 1996; Rafikov 2004; Levison et al. 2010), but growth time scales can be drastically reduced by considering the accretion of pebbles (Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010; Lambrechts & Johansen 2012; Morbidelli & Nesvorny 2012).”
Pebble-isolation mass: Scaling law and implications for the formation of super-Earths and gas giants (2018, background): “In recent years, a new paradigm of solid accretion has emerged: pebble accretion (Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010; Lambrechts & Johansen 2012; Morbidelli & Nesvorny 2012).”
Adding particle collisions to the formation of asteroids and Kuiper belt objects via streaming instabilities (2011, background): “…comparison to observed planetesimal belts is nevertheless complicated by a potentially very efficient accretion of unbound particles (pebbles and rocks) by the newly born planetesimals after their formation (Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010), an epoch not captured in our simulations.”
The great dichotomy of the Solar System: Small terrestrial embryos and massive giant planet cores (2015, methodology): “In a series of recent papers (Lambrechts and Johansen, 2012, 2014; Ormel and Klahr, 2010; Johansen and Lacerda, 2010; Murray-Clay et al., 2011; Morbidelli and Nesvorny, 2012; Kretke and Levison, 2014b), a new model has been proposed in which massive planetesimals accrete pebbles (particles cm to dm ”
Differentiated Planetesimals and the Parent Bodies of Chondrites (2013, background): “However, taking into account the interaction of particle streams with the nebular gas, Johansen & Lacerda (2010) observed that such bodies can accrete 10–50% of their masses within just a few tens of years.”
Dynamics of pebbles in the vicinity of a growing planetary embryo: hydro-dynamical simulations (2012, background): “…growth, which argues that, if the mass in the disk is predominantly carried by pebbles of a few decimeters in size, the largest planetesimals accrete pebbles very efficiently, rapidly growing to several Earth masses (see also Johansen & Lacerda 2010; Ormel & Klahr 2010; Murray-Clay et al. 2011).”