Influence of grain sizes and composition on the contraction rates of planetary envelopes and on planetary migration

TL;DR

This study investigates how grain size and composition in planetary envelopes affect contraction times and migration distances, revealing that larger grains and water-poor environments lead to less inward migration and different planet positions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant impact of grain size distribution and chemical composition on envelope contraction and planetary migration, highlighting the importance of these factors in planet formation models.

Findings

Larger grain sizes lead to faster gas accretion and reduced inward migration.

Water-poor environments cause faster envelope contraction, resulting in planets forming farther from the star.

Chemical composition of grains crucially influences the migration and final position of forming planets.

Abstract

A crucial phase during planetary growth is the migration when the planetary core has been assembled, but the planet did not open a deep gap yet. During this phase the planet is subject to fast type-I migration, which is mostly directed inwards, and the planet can lose a significant fraction of its semi-major axis. The duration of this phase is set by how long the planetary envelope needs to contract until it reaches a mass similar to the mass of the planetary core, which is when runaway gas accretion can set in and the planet can open a deeper gap in the disc, transitioning into the slower type-II migration. This envelope contraction phase depends crucially on the planetary mass and on the opacity inside the planetary envelope. Here we study how different opacity prescriptions influence the envelope contraction time and how this in turn influences how far the planet migrates through the disc. We find within our simulations that the size distribution of the grains as well as the chemical composition of the grains crucially influences how far the planet migrates before it can reach the runaway gas accretion phase. Grain size distributions with larger grain sizes result in less inward migration of the growing planet, due to faster gas accretion enabled by more efficient cooling. In addition, we find that planets forming in water poor environments can contract their envelope faster and thus migrate less, implying that gas giants forming in water poor environments might be located further away from their central star compared to gas giants forming in water rich environments. Future studies of planet formation that aim to investigate the chemical composition of formed gas giants need to take these effects self consistently into account.