On the Formation of Planetesimals via Secular Gravitational Instabilities with Turbulent Stirring

TL;DR

This paper investigates how secular gravitational instabilities, influenced by gas drag and turbulence, can lead to planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks, highlighting conditions that favor collapse and the role of different particle sizes.

Contribution

It introduces a linear model for secular GI considering turbulent diffusion, identifying conditions like weak turbulence and particle size that facilitate planetesimal formation, and compares with simulations including streaming instability.

Findings

Secular GI can form wide rings of up to 0.1 Earth masses.

Weak turbulence (α ≲ 10^{-4}) favors planetesimal formation.

Large solids (≳10 cm) collapse faster than smaller particles.

Abstract

We study the gravitational instability (GI) of small solids in a gas disk as a mechanism to form planetesimals. Dissipation from gas drag introduces secular GI, which proceeds even when standard GI criteria for a critical density or Toomre's $Q$ predict stability. We include the stabilizing effects of turbulent diffusion, which suppresses small scale GI. The radially wide rings that do collapse contain up to $\sim 0.1$ Earth masses of solids. Subsequent fragmentation of the ring (not modeled here) would produce a clan of chemically homogenous planetesimals. Particle radial drift time scales (and, to a lesser extent, disk lifetimes and sizes) restrict the viability of secular GI to disks with weak turbulent diffusion, characterized by $\alpha \lesssim 10^{-4}$. Thus midplane dead zones are a preferred environment. Large solids with radii $\gtrsim 10$ cm collapse most rapidly because they partially decouple from the gas disk. Smaller solids, even below $\sim$ mm-sizes could collapse if particle-driven turbulence is weakened by either localized pressure maxima or super-Solar metallicity. Comparison with simulations that include particle clumping by the streaming instability shows that our linear model underpredicts rapid, small scale gravitational collapse. Thus the inclusion of more detailed gas dynamics promotes the formation of planetesimals. We discuss relevant constraints from Solar System and accretion disk observations.