A limit on gas accretion onto close-in super-Earth cores from disk accretion

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new mechanism involving disk wind-driven gas flow that limits gas accretion onto super-Earth cores, explaining their prevalence close to stars and the formation of gas giants further out.

Contribution

It introduces a model where magnetically driven disk winds regulate gas supply, preventing runaway accretion onto super-Earths in close-in orbits.

Findings

Super-Earths can avoid runaway gas accretion with limited disk gas inflow.

Super-Earths with H2/He atmospheres form within 1 au of the star.

Gas giants form in the outer regions, explaining observed planetary distributions.

Abstract

The core-accretion model predicts that planetary cores as massive as super-Earths undergo runaway gas accretion to become gas giants. However, the exoplanet census revealed the prevalence of super-Earths close to their host stars, which should have avoided runaway gas accretion. In fact, mass-radius relationships of transiting planets suggest that some close-in super-Earths possess H$_2$/He atmospheres of ~ 0.1-10% by mass. Previous studies indicated that properties of a disk gas such as metallicity and the inflow/outflow cycle of a disk gas around a super-Earth can regulate accumulation of a H$_2$/He atmosphere onto itself. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism that radial mass accretion in a disk can limit the gas accretion onto super-Earth cores. Recent magneto-hydrodynamic simulations found that magnetically driven disk winds can drive a rapid gas flow near the disk surface. Such a rapid gas flow may slip out of a planetary core and regulate gas supply to an accreting gas onto the core. We performed N-body simulations for formation of super-Earths with accretion of atmospheres in a viscous accretion disk including effects of wind-driven accretion. We found that even super-Earth cores can avoid triggering runaway gas accretion if the inflow of a disk gas toward the cores is limited by viscous accretion. Our model predicts that super-Earths having H$_2$/He atmosphere of ~ 0.1-10 wt % form within $\lesssim$ 1 au of the central star, whereas gas giants are born in the outer region. This mechanism can explain the radial dependence of observed giant planets beyond the solar system.