The effect of Jupiter on the CAI storage problem

TL;DR

This study investigates how Jupiter's formation influenced the distribution and preservation of calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) in the early solar system, using numerical simulations to revisit a previous hypothesis about CAI trapping.

Contribution

The paper extends previous models by including the infall phase of disk formation, demonstrating that early CAI transport is highly efficient and affects their distribution in the protoplanetary disk.

Findings

Outward transport of CAIs during infall is very efficient.

Jupiter's pressure maximum can trap CAIs beyond its orbit.

Early CAI formation leads to high abundances out to 100 AU.

Abstract

By studying the distribution of calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) that are embedded within meteorites, we can learn about the dynamical history of the protoplanetary disk from which our Solar System formed. A long-standing problem concerning CAIs is the CAI storage problem. CAIs are thought to have formed at high temperatures near the Sun, but they are primarily found in carbonaceous chondrites, which formed much further out, beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Additionally, radial drift of CAI particles should have removed them from the solar protoplanetary disk several million years before the parent bodies of meteorites in which they are encountered would have accreted. We revisit a previously suggested solution to the CAI storage problem by Desch, Kalyaan, and Alexander which proposed that CAIs were mixed radially outward through the disk and subsequently got trapped in a pressure maximum created by Jupiter's growing core opening a planet gap. Our aim is to investigate whether their solution still works when we take into account the infall phase during which the disk builds up from the collapse of a molecular cloud core. We build a 1D numerical code in Python using the DISKLAB package to simulate the evolution of the solar protoplanetary disk, starting with a collapsing molecular cloud. We find that outward transport of CAIs during the infall phase is very efficient, possibly mixing them all the way into the far outer disk. Subsequent inward radial drift collects CAIs in the pressure maximum beyond Jupiter's orbit while draining the inner disk, roughly reproducing parts of the result by Desch et al. By introducing CAI formation so early, abundances out to 100 AU remain significant, possibly not consistent with some meteoritic data. It is possible to create a disk that does not expand as far out and also does not push CAIs as far out by using a very slowly rotating cloud.