Giant Planet Formation by Disk Instability: A Comparison Simulation With An Improved Radiative Scheme

TL;DR

This study compares high-resolution simulations of protoplanetary disks using different radiative schemes, finding that improved radiative modeling prevents disk fragmentation and challenges previous claims of giant planet formation via gravitational instability.

Contribution

The paper introduces an improved radiative scheme in 3D hydrodynamics simulations, demonstrating that previous models may have overestimated cooling rates leading to fragmentation.

Findings

Improved radiative scheme prevents disk fragmentation.

Previous models may have artificially accelerated cooling.

Disk remains stable with low amplitude nonaxisymmetric structures.

Abstract

There has been disagreement currently about whether cooling in protoplanetary disks can be sufficiently fast to induce the formation of gas giant protoplanets via gravitational instabilities. Simulations by our own group and others indicate that this method of planet formation does not work for disks around young, low- mass stars inside several tens of AU, while simulations by other groups show fragmentation into protoplanetary clumps in this region. To allow direct comparison in hopes of isolating the cause of the differences, we here present a high resolution three-dimensional hydrodynamics simulation of a protoplanetary disk, where the disk model, initial perturbation, and simulation conditions are essentially identical to those used in a set of simulations by Boss. As in earlier papers by the same author, Boss (2007, hereafter B07) purports to show that cooling is fast enough to produce protoplanetary clumps. Here, we evolve the same B07 disk using an improved version of one of our own radiative schemes and find that the disk does not fragment in our code but instead quickly settles into a state with only low amplitude nonaxisymmetric structure, which persists for at least several outer disk rotations. We see no rapid radiative or convective cooling. We conclude that the differences in results are due to different treatments of regions at and above the disk photosphere, and we explain at least one way in which the scheme in B07 may lead to artificially fast cooling.