Far and extreme ultraviolet radiation fields and consequent disc destruction in star-forming regions

TL;DR

This study investigates how intense FUV and EUV radiation in star-forming regions causes rapid protoplanetary disc destruction, impacting planet formation timescales and environments.

Contribution

It provides a parameter-space analysis of radiation fields in star-forming regions and links these to disc mass-loss, highlighting the importance of environment on planet formation.

Findings

FUV fields are much higher than in the interstellar medium.

Gas in protoplanetary discs is destroyed within 1 Myr due to photoevaporation.

Gas giant planets must form rapidly or in special environments.

Abstract

The first stages of planet formation usually occur when the host star is still in a (relatively) dense star-forming region, where the effects of the external environment may be important for understanding the outcome of the planet formation process. In particular, star-forming regions that contain massive stars have strong far ultraviolet (FUV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation fields, which can induce mass-loss from protoplanetary discs due to photoevaporation. In this paper we present a parameter-space study of the expected FUV and EUV fields in N-body simulations of star-forming regions with a range of initial conditions. We then use recently published models to determine the mass-loss due to photoevaporation from protoplanetary discs. In particular, we focus on the effects of changing the initial degree of spatial structure and initial virial ratio in the star-forming regions, as well as the initial stellar density. We find that the FUV fields in star-forming regions are much higher than in the interstellar medium, even when the regions have stellar densities as low as in the Galactic field, due to the presence of intermediate-mass, and massive, stars (>5Msun). These strong radiation fields lead to the destruction of the gas component in protoplanetary discs within 1 Myr, implying that gas giant planets must either form extremely rapidly (<1 Myr), or that they exclusively form in star-forming regions like Taurus, which contain no intermediate-mass or massive stars. The latter scenario is in direct tension with meteoritic evidence from the Solar system that suggests the Sun and its protoplanetary disc was born in close proximity to massive stars.