Planet Formation Mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper reviews the main theories of planet formation, focusing on disk instability and core accretion, and aims to clarify their physical principles despite observational challenges.

Contribution

It provides an intuitive overview of planet formation mechanisms, emphasizing physical principles behind disk instability and core accretion models.

Findings

Disk instability involves direct formation of giant planets from disk fragmentation.

Core accretion describes a bottom-up growth of planets from solid bodies to gas accretion.

The review clarifies physical processes underlying planet formation models.

Abstract

Planet formation encompasses processes that span a remarkable 40 magnitudes in mass, ranging from collisions between micron-sized grains inherited from the ISM to the accretion of gas by giant planets. The planet formation process takes place in the interior of dusty disks, which offer us only limited observational constraints. Historically, the two main paradigms describing planet formation are the disk instability and core accretion models. In the former giant planets condense directly form a disk massive enough to fragments under its own self-gravity. In contrast, the core accretion model follows a bottom-up approach driven by the growth of solid bodies. The core accretion model includes the direct growth phase, where pebble and possibly planetesimal sized bodies form by surface-driven processes. Alternatively, planetesimal bodies can emerge from instabilities in the solid population, leading to the formation of clumps that ultimately collapse. The later stages of the core accretion model involve the emergence of protoplanets from the planetesimal population, which accretes smaller bodies|planetesimals or pebbles|before ultimately accreting freely the gas of the disk. In this Chapter I will review these formation mechanisms, aiming, where possible, to build an intuitive understanding from elementary physical principles.