Distribution of Accreting Gas and Angular Momentum onto Circumplanetary Disks

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution 3D hydrodynamic simulations to analyze gas accretion onto circumplanetary disks, revealing the flow structure, angular momentum distribution, and implications for satellite formation.

Contribution

It provides detailed insights into the vertical gas accretion process, shock formation, and flux distributions, advancing understanding of circumplanetary disk formation mechanisms.

Findings

Most gas accretes vertically from high altitude, forming a shock surface.

Gas near the midplane tends to spiral outward and escape through Lagrangian points.

Mass and angular momentum fluxes follow power-law distributions, with most accretion occurring at about 0.1 Hill radius.

Abstract

We investigate gas accretion flow onto a circumplanetary disk from a protoplanetary disk in detail by using high-resolution three-dimensional nested-grid hydrodynamic simulations, in order to provide a basis of formation processes of satellites around giant planets. Based on detailed analyses of gas accretion flow, we find that most of gas accretion onto circumplanetary disks occurs nearly vertically toward the disk surface from high altitude, which generates a shock surface at several scale heights of the circumplanetary disk. The gas that has passed through the shock surface moves inward because its specific angular momentum is smaller than that of the local Keplerian rotation, while gas near the midplane in the protoplanetary disk cannot accrete to the circumplanetary disk. Gas near the midplane within the planet's Hill sphere spirals outward and escapes from the Hill sphere through the two Lagrangian points L$_1$ and L$_2$. We also analyze fluxes of accreting mass and angular momentum in detail and find that the distributions of the fluxes onto the disk surface are well described by power-law functions and that a large fraction of gas accretion occurs at the outer region of the disk, i.e., at about 0.1 times the Hill radius. The nature of power-law functions indicates that, other than the outer edge, there is no specific radius where gas accretion is concentrated. These source functions of mass and angular momentum in the circumplanetary disk would provide us with useful constraints on the structure and evolution of the circumplanetary disk, which is important for satellite formation.