Hydrogen-loosing planets in transition discs around young protostars

TL;DR

This paper explores how protoplanets formed via Tidal Downsizing can create dust-poor inner accretion flows in young protostellar discs, potentially explaining certain observed transitional discs with large holes.

Contribution

It proposes a novel observational signature of Tidal Downsizing protoplanets affecting disc evolution and dust distribution, linking theory with specific disc observations.

Findings

Massive protoplanets can create dust-poor inner flows in young discs.

Older protoplanets are less likely to lose dust-rich envelopes, challenging the model.

The observed dust-poor transitional discs may be younger than previously thought.

Abstract

We point out that protoplanets created in the framework of the Tidal Downsizing (TD) theory for planet formation play a very important role for the evolution of accretion discs hosting them. Since all TD protoplanets are initially as massive as $\sim 10$ Jupiter masses, they are able to open very deep gaps in their discs, and even completely isolate the inner disc flows from the outer ones. Furthermore, in contrast to other planet formation theories, TD protoplanets are mass donors for their protostars. One potentially observable signature of planets being devoured by their protostars are FU Ori like outbursts, and episodic protostar accretion more generally, as discussed by a number of authors recently. Here we explore another observational implication of TD hypothesis: dust poor inner accretion flows, which we believe may be relevant to some of the observed mm-bright transitional discs around protostars. In our model, a massive protoplanet interrupts the flow of the outer dust-rich disc on its protostar, and at the same time looses a part of its dust-poor envelope into the inner disc. This then powers the observed gas-but-no-dust accretion onto the star. Upon a more detailed investigation, we find that this scenario is quite natural for young massive discs but is less so for older discs, e.g., those whose self-gravitating phase has terminated a fraction of a Million year or more ago. This stems from the fact that TD protoplanets of such an age should have contracted significantly, and so are unlikely to loose much mass. Therefore, we conclude that either (i) the population of "transition discs" with large holes and dust-poor accretion is much younger than generally believed; or (ii) there is a poorly understood stage for late removal of dust-poor envelopes from TD planets; (iii) another explanation for the observations is correct.