Promoted Mass Growth of Multiple, Distant Giant Planets through Pebble Accretion and Planet-Planet Collision

TL;DR

This study presents a pebble-driven planet formation model that explains the rapid growth and wide orbital distribution of multiple giant planets through pebble accretion and planet-planet collisions, aligning with observed exoplanet populations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scenario combining pebble accretion and collisions to form multiple distant giant planets early in disk evolution, reducing inward migration.

Findings

Multiple giant planets can form within 1.5-3 Myr at several to tens of AU.

Rapid core growth leads to early transition from type I to type II migration.

Simulated planet populations match observed disk substructures and distant exoplanets.

Abstract

We propose a pebble-driven planet formation scenario to form giant planets with high multiplicity and large orbital distances in the early gas disk phase. We perform N-body simulations to investigate the growth and migration of low-mass protoplanets in the disk with inner viscously heated and outer stellar irradiated regions. The key feature of this model is that the giant planet cores grow rapidly by a combination of pebble accretion and planet-planet collisions. This consequently speeds up their gas accretion. Because of efficient growth, the planet transitions from rapid type I migration to slow type II migration early, reducing the inward migration substantially. Multiple giant planets can sequentially form in this way with increasing semimajor axes. Both mass growth and orbital retention are more pronounced when a large number of protoplanets are taken into account compared to the case of single planet growth. Eventually, a few numbers of giant planets form with orbital distances of a few to a few tens of AUs within $1.5{-}3$ Myr after the birth of the protoplanets. The resulting simulated planet populations could be linked to the substructures exhibited in disk observations as well as large orbital distance exoplanets observed in radial velocity and microlensing surveys.