On the Survivability and Metamorphism of Tidally Disrupted Giant Planets: the Role of Dense Cores

TL;DR

This study explores how tidal disruption of giant planets with dense cores can lead to the formation of close-in super-Earths and Neptune-like planets, highlighting the importance of core mass in planetary survivability.

Contribution

It introduces a new mechanism involving core-enhanced tidal disruption to explain the origin of short-period super-Earths and Neptunes, supported by hydrodynamical simulations.

Findings

Presence of a dense core increases envelope retention after tidal encounters

Core-bearing planets are more likely to survive close stellar passages

The model can produce short-period planets consistent with observations

Abstract

A large population of planetary candidates in short-period orbits have been found through transit searches. Radial velocity surveys have also revealed several Jupiter-mass planets with highly eccentric orbits. Measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect indicate some misaligned planetary systems. This diversity could be induced by post-formation dynamical processes such as planet-planet scattering, the Kozai effect, or secular chaos which brings planets to the vicinity of their host stars. In this work, we propose a novel mechanism to form close-in super-Earths and Neptune-like planets through the tidal disruption of giant planets as a consequence of these dynamical processes. We model the core-envelope structure of giant planets with composite polytropes. Using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of close encounters between planets and their host stars, we find that the presence of a core with a mass more than ten Earth masses can significantly increase the fraction of envelope which remains bound to it. After the encounter, planets with cores are more likely to be retained by their host stars in contrast with previous studies which suggested that coreless planets are often ejected. As a substantial fraction of their gaseous envelopes is preferentially lost while the dense incompressible cores retain most of their original mass, the resulting metallicity of the surviving planets is increased. Our results suggest that some gas giant planets can be effectively transformed into either super-Earths or Neptune-like planets after multiple close stellar passages. Finally, we analyze the orbits and structure of known planets and Kepler candidates and find that our model is capable producing some of the shortest-period objects.