Dynamical friction on hot bodies in opaque, gaseous media

Abstract

We consider the gravitational force exerted on a point-like perturber of mass $M$ travelling within a uniform gaseous, opaque medium at constant velocity $V$. The perturber irradiates the surrounding gas with luminosity $L$. The diffusion of the heat released is modelled with a uniform thermal diffusivity $χ$. Using linear perturbation theory, we show that the force exerted by the perturbed gas on the perturber differs from the force without radiation (or standard dynamical friction). Hot, underdense gas trails the mass, which gives rise to a new force component, the heating force, with direction $+V$, thus opposed to the standard dynamical friction. In the limit of low Mach numbers, the heating force has expression $F_\mathrm{heat}=γ(γ-1)GML/(2χc_s^2)$, $c_s$ being the sound speed and $γ$ the ratio of specific heats. In the limit of large Mach numbers, $F_\mathrm{heat}=(γ-1)GML/(χV^2)f(r_\mathrm{min}V/4χ)$, where $f$ is a function that diverges logarithmically as $r_\mathrm{min}$ tends to zero. Remarkably, the force in the low Mach number limit does not depend on the velocity. The equilibrium speed, when it exists, is set by the cancellation of the standard dynamical friction and heating force. In the low Mach number limit, it scales with the luminosity to mass ratio of the perturber. Using the above results suggests that Mars- to Earth-sized planetary embryos heated by accretion in a gaseous protoplanetary disc should have eccentricities and inclinations that amount to a sizeable fraction of the disc's aspect ratio, for conditions thought to prevail at a few astronomical units.