Chondrule Transport in Protoplanetary Disks

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations of a protoplanetary disk to investigate how chondrules form, move, and contribute to the diversity of chondrite classes, revealing the importance of disk accretion rates and formation timing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel numerical approach to model chondrule transport in protoplanetary disks, linking formation events to observed chondrite diversity.

Findings

High accretion rates enable longer delays between formation and accretion.

Older disks have fewer chondrules, especially at low accretion rates.

Distribution of chondrule origins can explain chondrite diversity.

Abstract

Chondrule formation remains one of the most elusive early Solar System events. Here, we take the novel approach of employing numerical simulations to investigate chondrule origin beyond purely cosmochemical methods. We model the transport of generically-produced chondrules and dust in a 1D viscous protoplanetary disk model, in order to constrain the chondrule formation events. For a single formation event we are able to match analytical predictions of the memory chondrule and dust populations retain of each other (complementarity), finding that a large mass accretion rate ($\gtrsim 10^{-7}$~M$_\odot$~yr$^{-1}$) allows for delays on the order of the disk's viscous timescale between chondrule formation and chondrite accretion. Further, we find older disks to be severely diminished of chondrules, with accretion rates $\lesssim 10^{-9}$~M$_\odot$~yr$^{-1}$ for nominal parameters. We then characterize the distribution of chondrule origins in both space and time, as functions of disk parameters and chondrule formation rates, in runs with continuous chondrule formation and both static and evolving disks. Our data suggest that these can account for the observed diversity between distinct chondrite classes, if some diversity in accretion time is allowed for.