A formation pathway for terrestrial planets with moderate water content involving atmospheric-volatile recycling

TL;DR

This study models the formation of terrestrial planets with moderate water content through pebble accretion and atmospheric-volatile recycling, explaining observed water fractions in TRAPPIST-1 planets.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytical model incorporating vapor recycling to explain moderate water fractions in terrestrial exoplanets.

Findings

Decreasing pebble influx leads to moderate water content in planets.

Vapor recycling significantly influences planetary water mass fractions.

Model aligns with water content observed in TRAPPIST-1 planets.

Abstract

Of the many recently discovered terrestrial exoplanets, some are expected to harbor moderate water mass fractions of a few percent. The formation pathways that can produce planets with these water mass fractions are not fully understood. Here, we use the code chemcomp, which consists of a semi-analytical 1D protoplanetary disk model harboring a migrating and accreting planet, to model the growth and composition of planets with moderate water mass fractions by pebble accretion in a protoplanetary disk around a TRAPPIST-1 analog star. This star is accompanied by seven terrestrial planets, of which the outer four planets likely contain water mass fractions of between 1\% and 10\%. We adopt a published model that considers the evaporation of pebbles in the planetary envelope, from where recycling flows can transport the volatile vapor back into the disk. We find that with this model, the planetary water content depends on the influx rate of pebbles onto the planet. A decreasing pebble influx with time reduces the envelope temperature and consequently allows the formation of planets with moderate water mass fractions as inferred for the outer TRAPPIST-1 planets for a number of different simulation configurations. This is further evidence that the recycling of vapor is an important component of planet formation needed to explain the vast and diverse population of exoplanets.