Rapid Formation of Saturn after Jupiter Completion

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that Saturn's core could rapidly form within two million years at a pressure maximum created by Jupiter's gap opening, explaining the formation of multiple gas giants without significant inward migration.

Contribution

It reveals a new rapid formation mechanism for Saturn's core via pressure maxima in the protoplanetary disk, influenced by Jupiter's gap opening.

Findings

Saturn's core can reach over 10 Earth masses within 2 million years.

Rapid core growth allows Saturn to acquire its gaseous envelope before disk dispersal.

Formation of multiple gas giants is possible without significant inward migration.

Abstract

We have investigated Saturn's core formation at a radial pressure maximum in a protoplanetary disk, which is created by gap opening by Jupiter. A core formed via planetesimal accretion induces the fragmentation of surrounding planetesimals, which generally inhibits further growth of the core by removal of the resulting fragments due to radial drift caused by gas drag. However, the emergence of the pressure maximum halts the drift of the fragments, while their orbital eccentricities and inclinations are efficiently damped by gas drag. As a result, the core of Saturn rapidly grows via accretion of the fragments near the pressure maximum. We have found that in the minimum-mass solar nebula, kilometer sized planetesimals can produce a core exceeding 10 Earth masses within two million years. Since Jupiter may not have undergone significant type II inward migration, it is likely that Jupiter's formation was completed when the local disk mass has already decayed to a value comparable to or less than Jovian mass. The expected rapid growth of Saturn's core on a timescale comparable to or shorter than observationally inferred disk lifetime enables Saturn to acquire the current amount of envelope gas before the disk gas is completely depleted. The high heat energy release rate onto the core surface due to the rapid accretion of the fragments delays onset of runaway gas accretion until the core mass becomes somewhat larger than that of Jupiter, which is consistent with the estimate based on interior modeling. Therefore, the rapid formation of Saturn induced by gap opening of Jupiter can account for the formation of multiple gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) without significant inward migration and larger core mass of Saturn than that of Jupiter.