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Simulations of unstable gaseous disks and the origin of giant planets

Lucio Mayer·Thomas Quinn·James Wadsley·Joachim Stadel
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Abstract

We study the evolution of cold, gravitationally unstable protoplanetary gaseous disks performing 3D SPH simulations with up to a million particles on large parallel machines. We show that self-gravitating protoplanets can form in disks with initial $Q_{min} \sim 1.4$ provided that disks are evolved with a locally isothermal equation of state until localized regions reach a sufficiently high density. Lower resolution simulations carried out for as long as a thousand years show that systems of giant protoplanets with masses and orbits comparable to those of the observed extrasolar planets arise naturally.

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Lucio Mayer, Thomas Quinn, James Wadsley, Joachim Stadel. 2003-01-29. Simulations of unstable gaseous disks and the origin of giant planets. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301591

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