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Andre Izidoro

Publications and source records attributed to Andre Izidoro.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

The fragility of the Uranian moons during the giant planet instability

It is thought that, sometime after their formation, the solar system's giant planets experienced a dynamical instability that caused their orbits to excite, diverge, and ejected one or more objects with masses comparable to the ice giants. A key feature of this model is that the planets experience encounters with other planetary bodies, and these encounters facilitate the capture of nearby small bodies as irregular satellites. Instability simulations indicate that planet-planet encounter distances can typically fall below 0.1 au, which is only roughly an order of magnitude larger than the radial extent of the modern planets' regular satellite systems. In this paper we model the effects of these encounters on the dynamical stability of the regular moons of Jupiter and Uranus. We tested encounter histories from 122 plausible outer solar system dynamical histories. We find that the survival probability for the Jovian and Uranian moon systems are both less than 15%. Moreover, we only identify one case where both Uranus and Jupiter's large satellites consistently survive the same instability. Interestingly, Jupiter's moons are most likely to survive in instabilities initialized with two smaller extra ice giants, and cases with one larger additional planet provide more favorable conditions for Uranian system survival. In either case, if Uranus encounters another ice giant at D<0.02 au, or one of the gas giants at D<0.1 au, satellite system destruction is effectively guaranteed. Wider encounters can also affect the system, particularly when they occur successively. Since the Laplace resonance likely would not be in place today if Jupiter's moons experienced an instability that led to collisions, our results indicate that Uranus' moons were likely perturbed to the point of collisions at least twice: as a result of both the impact that tilted the planet and the giant planet instability.

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Elevated Eccentricities in the Radius Valley Hint at Water-Rich Mini-Neptunes

While recent planet-formation models broadly reproduce the observed population of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes, as well as the bimodal radius distribution (the ``radius valley''), it remains unclear whether all these planets share a common rocky composition (a single popoulation of planets) or instead comprise two distinct populations -- rocky planets and icy planets (two populations of planets). The inferred eccentricity-radius relation, which shows a modest peak near the radius valley, provides a useful diagnostic for distinguishing between these scenarios. Here we use N-body simulations to examine how the radii and eccentricities of close-in planets depend on the masses and orbital configurations of their progenitor protoplanets. We find that final planetary eccentricities scale with the system initial Safronov number. In two-population systems, energy equipartition between rocky and relatively more massive icy protoplanets creates a strong eccentricity contrast between the two groups, which appears as a peak near the radius valley. This signature does not appear if planetary systems are composed exclusively of rocky planets (with or without H-rich atmospheres), as assumed in photoevaporation and core-powered mass loss models. Because the eccentricity-radius relation traces a dichotomy in the underlying protoplanet mass distribution -- most plausibly arising from formation at different disk locations -- our results suggest that a significant fraction of mini-Neptunes are water-worlds. The observed radius and eccentricity distributions may reflect a mixture of systems that host exclusively rocky planets, systems dominated by icy planets, and systems with both rocky and icy planets.

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Carbon from Interstellar Clouds to Habitable Worlds

Carbon is an essential element for a habitable world. Inner (r < 3 au) disk planetary carbon compositions are strongly influenced by supply and survival of carbonaceous solids. Here we trace the journey of carbon from the interstellar medium to the processes leading to planet formation. The review highlights the following central aspects: -Organics forming in evolved star envelopes are supplemented by aromatic molecules forming in the dense ISM to represent the seeds of (hydro)carbon supply through pervasive pebble drift to rocky planets and sub-Neptune cores. -Within the protoplanetary disk the sharp gradient in the C/Si content of Solar System bodies and mineral geochemistry outlines a tale of carbon loss from pebbles to within planetesimals and planets, and from planetary atmospheres. -Within two planet formation paradigms (pebble and planetesimal accretion) a range of planetary carbon content is possible that is strongly influenced by early (< 0.5 Myr) formation of a pressure bump that titrates drift. Overall, it is unlikely that the carbon architecture of our Solar System applies to all systems. In the absence of giant planets, carbon-rich rocky worlds and sub-Neptunes may be common. We outline observations that support their presence and discuss habitability of terrestrial worlds.

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The Role of Magnetospheric Rebound in Breaking Resonant Chains of Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes

Stellar magnetic fields are thought to truncate the inner regions of protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars, creating a magnetospheric cavity near the star. As the disk evolves and disperses, the truncation radius is expected to move outward as the balance between magnetic and viscous forces shifts. Planets migrating inward can become trapped near the inner edge, but as the edge itself moves outward, the evolving disk torques can drive planets to migrate outward as well. We employ N-body simulations to assess the influence of magnetospheric cavity expansion on the dynamical evolution and orbital architectures of compact resonant chains of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Our results show that rebound-driven expansion of the disk's inner edge plays a pivotal role in destabilizing resonant chains by spreading planetary systems outward, thereby triggering early dynamical instabilities and giant impacts. Despite this dynamical evolution, key observable properties of close-in planetary systems -- such as the distribution of orbital period ratio, the intra-system similarity in planet sizes (``radius uniformity''), and the bimodal distribution of planet radii known as the ``radius valley'' -- remain largely consistent with those of systems formed without the rebound effect, in which the inner edge of the disk remains fixed. Thus, the primary consequence of the rebound appears to be the early disruption of resonant chains, rather than any significant alteration to the statistical properties of the resulting super-Earth and mini-Neptune populations.

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A tale of dynamical instabilities and giant impacts in the radius valley

The size distribution of planets with radii between 1 and $4 R_\oplus$ peaks near 1.4 and $2.2R_\oplus$, with a dip around $1.8 R_\oplus$ -- the so-called "radius valley." Recent statistical analyses suggest that planets within this valley ($1.5 < R < 2R_\oplus$) tend to have slightly higher orbital eccentricities than those outside it. The origin of this dynamical signature remains unclear. We revisit the "breaking the chains" formation model and propose that late dynamical instabilities -- occurring after disk dispersal -- may account for the elevated eccentricities observed in the radius valley. Our simulations show that sub-valley planets ($R < 2 R_\oplus$) are generally rocky, while those beyond the valley ($R > 2 R_\oplus$) are typically water-rich. Rocky planets that undergo strong dynamical instabilities and numerous late giant impacts have their orbits excited and their radii increased, ultimately placing them into the radius valley. In contrast, the larger, water-rich planets just beyond the valley experience weaker instabilities and fewer impacts, resulting in lower eccentricities. This contrast leads to a peak in the eccentricity distribution within the valley. The extent to which planets in the radius valley are dynamically excited depends sensitively on the orbital architecture before the orbital instability. Elevated eccentricities among radius valley planets arise primarily in scenarios that form a sufficiently large number of rocky planets within 100 days (typically $\gtrsim 5$) prior to instability, and that also host external perturbers ($P > 100$ days), which further amplify the strength of dynamical instabilities.

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Size-Frequency Distribution of Terrestrial Leftover Planetesimals and S-complex Implanted Asteroids

The isotopic composition of meteorites linked to S-complex asteroids has been used to suggest that these asteroids originated in the terrestrial planet's region, i.e., within 1.5 au, and later got implanted into the main asteroid belt (MAB). Dynamical models of planet formation support this view. Yet, it remains to be demonstrated whether the currently observed size-frequency distribution (SFD) of S-complex bodies in the MAB can be reproduced via this implantation process. Here we studied the evolution of the SFD of planetesimals during the accretion of terrestrial planets with the code LIPAD self-consistently accounting for growth and fragmentation of planetesimals. In our simulations we vary the initial surface density of planetesimals, the gaseous disk lifetime, and the power slope of the initial planetesimals' SFD. We compared the final SFDs of leftover planetesimals in the terrestrial planet region with the SFD of observed S-complex MAB objects (D $>$ 100km). We found that the SFDs of our planetesimal populations and that of S-complex MAB objects show very similar cumulative power index (i.e., q $\approx$ 3.15 in N($>$D)$~\propto$ D$^{-q}$) for slopes in the diameter range 100 km $<$ D $<$ 400 km by the end of our simulations. Our results support the hypothesis of S-complex MAB implantation from the terrestrial planet forming region, assuming implantation is size-independent, and implies that implantation efficiency is smaller than $\mathcal{O}$(10$^{\rm -2}$--10$^{\rm -4}$) to avoid over-implantation of (4) Vesta-sized objects or larger.

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Reassessing the origin and evolution of Ecliptic Comets in the Planet-9 Scenario

A group of newly observed extreme trans-Neptunian objects exhibit unexpected orbital confinement, characterized by the alignment of orbital angular momentum vectors and apsidal lines. It is proposed that an undiscovered giant planet, named Planet-9, exists in the solar system's outer regions and causes this clustering. Initial studies suggested Planet-9 could have a mass of 15 Earth masses. However, such a massive planet strongly interacts with scattered disk objects (SDOs; 50 < a < 1000 au) and influences the orbits of short-period comets, resulting in orbital inclinations inconsistent with observations. This study models the formation and long-term evolution of trans-Neptunian object populations and the Oort cloud during the solar system's dynamical instability, using revised parameters for Planet-9. Simulations assume Planet-9 has a mass of 7.5 Earth masses, an inclination of ~20 degrees, a semi-major axis of ~600 au, and an eccentricity of ~0.3. Results suggest a less massive Planet-9 aligns with observed trans-Neptunian object inclinations and the number of ecliptic comets (D > 10 km). Distant Kuiper belt objects with 40 < q < 100 au and 200 < a < 500 au, particularly with significant inclinations, are more likely to align apsidally with Planet-9, with an anti-aligned-to-aligned ratio of 0.5-0.7. Lower inclination objects (<20 degrees) exhibit significant apsidal anti-alignment, with an anti-aligned-to-aligned ratio of 2-4. These findings offer a new observational direction to refine the search for Planet-9.

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Formation of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes from rings of planetesimals

The solar system planetary architecture has been proposed to be consistent with the terrestrial and giant planets forming from material rings at ~1 au and ~5 au, respectively. Here, we show that super-Earths and mini-Neptunes may share a similar formation pathway. In our simulations conducted with a disk alpha-viscosity of 4e-3, super-Earths accrete from rings of rocky material in the inner disk, growing predominantly via planetesimal accretion. Mini-Neptunes primarily originate from rings located beyond the water snowline, forming via pebble accretion. Our simulations broadly match the period-ratio distribution, the intra-system size uniformity, and the planet multiplicity distribution of exoplanets. The radius valley constrains the typical total mass available for rocky planet formation to be less than 3-6 Earth masses. Our results predict that planets at ~1 au in systems with close-in super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are predominantly water-rich. Though relatively uncommon, at ~1% level, such systems might also host rocky Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone that underwent late giant impacts, akin to the Moon-forming event.

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Uranus Study Report: KISS

Determining the internal structure of Uranus is a key objective for planetary science. Knowledge of Uranus's bulk composition and the distribution of elements is crucial to understanding its origin and evolutionary path. In addition, Uranus represents a poorly understood class of intermediate-mass planets (intermediate in size between the relatively well studied terrestrial and gas giant planets), which appear to be very common in the Galaxy. As a result, a better characterization of Uranus will also help us to better understand exoplanets in this mass and size regime. Recognizing the importance of Uranus, a Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) workshop was held in September 2023 to investigate how we can improve our knowledge of Uranus's internal structure in the context of a future Uranus mission that includes an orbiter and a probe. The scientific goals and objectives of the recently released Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey were taken as our starting point. We reviewed our current knowledge of Uranus's interior and identified measurement and other mission requirements for a future Uranus spacecraft, providing more detail than was possible in the Decadal Survey's mission study and including new insights into the measurements to be made. We also identified important knowledge gaps to be closed with Earth-based efforts in the near term that will help guide the design of the mission and interpret the data returned.

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Diversity of disc viscosities can explain the period ratios of resonant and non-resonant systems of hot super-Earths and mini-Neptunes

Migration is a key ingredient for the formation of close-in super-Earth and mini-Neptune systems, as it sets in which resonances planets can be trapped. Slower migration rates result in wider resonance configurations compared to higher migration rates. We investigate the influence of different migration rates, set by the disc's viscosity, on the structure of multi-planet systems growing by pebble accretion via N-body simulations. Planets in low viscosity environments migrate slower due to partial gap opening. Thus systems formed in low viscosity environments tend to have planets trapped in wider resonant configurations (typically 4:3, 3:2 and 2:1), compared to their high viscosity counterparts (mostly 7:6, 5:4 and 4:3 resonances). After gas disc dissipation, the damping forces cease and the systems can undergo instabilities, rearranging their configurations and breaking the resonance chains. The low viscosity discs naturally account for the resonant chains like Trappist-1, TOI-178 and Kepler-223, unlike high viscosity simulations which produce relatively more compact chains. About 95% of our low viscosity resonant chains became unstable, experiencing giant impacts. Dynamical instabilities in our low viscosity simulations are more violent than those of high viscosity simulations due to the effects of leftover external perturbers (P>200 days). About 50% of our final system ended with no planets within 200 days, while all our systems have remaining outer planets. We speculate that this process could be qualitatively consistent with the lack of inner planets in a large fraction of Sun-like stars. Systems produced in low viscosity simulations alone do not match the overall period ratio distribution of observations, but give a better match to the period distributions of chains, which may suggest that systems of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes form in natal discs with a diversity of viscosities.

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Formation of Terrestrial Planets

Our understanding of the process of terrestrial planet formation has grown markedly over the past 20 years, yet key questions remain. This review begins by first addressing the critical, earliest stage of dust coagulation and concentration. While classic studies revealed how objects that grow to $\sim$meter sizes are rapidly removed from protoplanetary disks via orbital decay (seemingly precluding growth to larger sizes), this chapter addresses how this is resolved in contemporary, streaming instability models that favor rapid planetesimal formation via gravitational collapse of solids in over-dense regions. Once formed, planetesimals grow into Mars-Earth-sized planetary embryos by a combination of pebble- and planetesimal accretion within the lifetime of the nebular disk. After the disk dissipates, these embryos typically experience a series of late giant impacts en route to attaining their final architectures. This review also highlights three different inner Solar System formation models that can match a number of empirical constraints, and also reviews ways that one or more might be ruled out in favor of another in the near future. These include (1) the Grand Tack, (2) the Early Instability and (3) Planet Formation from Rings. Additionally, this chapter discusses formation models for the closest known analogs to our own terrestrial planets: super-Earths and terrestrial exoplanets in systems also hosting gas giants. Finally, this review lays out a chain of events that may explain why the Solar System looks different than more than 99% of exoplanet systems.

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Accretion of the earliest inner solar system planetesimals beyond the water-snowline

How and where the first generation of inner solar system planetesimals formed remains poorly understood. Potential formation regions are the silicate condensation line and water-snowline of the solar protoplanetary disk. Whether the chemical compositions of these planetesimals align with accretion at the silicate condensation line (water-free and reduced) or water-snowline (water-bearing and oxidized) is, however, unknown. Here we use Fe/Ni and Fe/Co ratios of magmatic iron meteorites to quantify the oxidation states of the earliest planetesimals associated with non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) reservoirs, representing the inner and outer solar system, respectively. Our results show that the earliest NC planetesimals contained substantial amounts of oxidized Fe in their mantles (3-19 wt% FeO). In turn, we argue that this required the accretion of water-bearing materials into these NC planetesimals. The presence of substantial quantities of moderately and highly volatile elements in their parent cores is also inconsistent with their accretion at the silicate condensation line and favors instead their formation at or beyond the water-snowline. Similar oxidation states in the early-formed parent bodies of NC iron meteorites and those of NC achondrites and chondrites with diverse accretion ages suggests that the formation of oxidized planetesimals from water-bearing materials was widespread in the early history of the inner solar system.

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The link between Athor and EL meteorites does not constrain the timing of the giant planet instability

The asteroid Athor, residing today in the inner main asteroid belt, has been recently associated as the source of EL enstatite meteorites to Earth. It has been argued that Athor formed in the terrestrial region -- as indicated by similarity in isotopic compositions between Earth and EL meteorites -- and was implanted in the belt $\gtrsim$60 Myr after the formation of the solar system. A recently published study modelling Athor's implantation in the belt (Avdellidou et al 2024) further concluded, using an idealized set of numerical simulations, that Athor cannot have been scattered from the terrestrial region and implanted at its current location unless the giant planet dynamical instability occurred {\em after} Athor's implantation ($\gtrsim$60~Myr). In this work, we revisit this problem with a comprehensive suite of dynamical simulations of the implantation of asteroids into the belt during the terrestrial planet accretion. We find that Athor-like objects can in fact be implanted into the belt long after the giant planets' dynamical instability. The probability of implanting Athor analogs when the instability occurs at $\lesssim15$~Myr is at most a factor of $\sim$2 lower than that of an instability occurring at $\sim100$~Myr after the solar system formation. Moreover, Athor's implantation can occur up to $\gtrsim$100 Myr after the giant planet instability. We conclude that Athor's link to EL meteorites does not constrain the timing of the solar system's dynamical instability.

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Implantation of asteroids from the terrestrial planet region: The effect of the timing of the giant planet instability

The dynamical architecture and compositional diversity of the asteroid belt strongly constrain planet formation models. Recent Solar System formation models have shown that the asteroid belt may have been born empty and later filled with objects from the inner ($<$2~au) and outer regions (>5 au) of the solar system. In this work, we focus on the implantation of inner solar system planetesimals into the asteroid belt - envisioned to represent S and/or E- type asteroids - during the late-stage accretion of the terrestrial planets. It is widely accepted that the solar system's giant planets formed in a more compact orbital configuration and evolved to their current dynamical state due to a planetary dynamical instability. In this work, we explore how the implantation efficiency of asteroids from the terrestrial region correlates with the timing of the giant planet instability, which has proven challenging to constrain. We carried out a suite of numerical simulations of the accretion of terrestrial planets considering different initial distributions of planetesimals in the terrestrial region and dynamical instability times. Our simulations show that a giant planet dynamical instability occurring at $t\gtrapprox5$ Myr -- relative to the time of the sun's natal disk dispersal -- is broadly consistent with the current asteroid belt, allowing the total mass carried out by S-complex type asteroids to be implanted into the belt from the terrestrial region. Finally, we conclude that an instability that occurs coincident with the gas disk dispersal is either inconsistent with the empty asteroid belt scenario, or may require that the gas disk in the inner solar system have dissipated at least a few Myr earlier than the gas in the outer disk (beyond Jupiter's orbit).

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Accretion and Uneven Depletion of the Main Asteroid Belt

The main asteroid belt (MAB) is known to be primarily composed of objects from two distinct taxonomic classes, generically defined here as S- and C-complex. The former probably originated from the inner solar system (interior to Jupiter's orbit), while the latter probably from the outer solar system. Following this definition, (4) Vesta, a V-type residing in the inner MAB (a < 2.5 au), is the sole D > 500 km object akin to S-complex that potentially formed in-situ. This provides a useful constraint on the number of D > 500 km bodies that could have formed, or grown, within the primordial MAB. In this work we numerically simulate the accretion of objects in the MAB region during the time when gas in the protoplanetary disk still existed, while assuming different MAB primordial masses. We then accounted for the depletion of that population happening after gas disk dispersal. In our analysis, we subdivided the MAB into five sub-regions and showed that the depletion factor varies throughout the MAB. This results in uneven radial- and size-dependent depletion of the MAB. We show that the MAB primordial mass has to be $\lesssim$ 2.14$\times$10$^{-3}$ Earth masses. Larger primordial masses would lead to the accretion of tens-to-thousands of S-complex objects with D > 500 km in the MAB. Such large objects would survive depletion even in the outer sub-regions (a > 2.5 au), thus being inconsistent with observations. Our results also indicate that S-complex objects with D > 200-300 km, including (4) Vesta, are likely to be terrestrial planetesimals implanted into the MAB rather than formed in-situ.

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Asteroids were born bigger: An implication of surface mass ablation during gas-assisted implantation into the asteroid belt

The origins of carbonaceous asteroids in the asteroid belt is not fully understood. The leading hypothesis is that they were not born at their current location but instead implanted into the asteroid belt early in the Solar System history. We investigate how the migration and growth of Jupiter and Saturn in their natal disk impact nearby planetesimals and subsequent planetesimal implantation into the asteroid belt. We account for the effects of surface ablation of planetesimals caused by thermal and frictional heating between the gas-disk medium and planetesimal surface, when planetesimals travel through the gas disk. We have performed simulations considering planetesimals of different compositions as water-ice rich planetesimals, water-ice poor planetesimals, organic-rich planetesimals, and fayalite-rich planetesimals. Our findings indicate that, regardless of the migration history of the giant planets, water-ice rich, organic-rich, and fayalite-rich planetesimals implanted into the asteroid belt generally experience surface ablation during implantation in the asteroid belt, shrinking in size. Planetesimals with enstatite-like compositions were inconsequential to surface ablation, preserving their original sizes. By assuming an initial planetesimal size-frequency distribution, our results show that -- under the effects of surface ablation -- the planetesimal population implanted into the asteroid belt shows a SFD slope slightly steeper than that of the initial one. This holds true for all migration histories of the giant planets considered in this work, but for the Grand-Tack model where the SFD slope remains broadly unchanged. Altogether, our results suggest that the largest C-type asteroids in the asteroid belt may have been born bigger. High-degree surface ablation during implantation into the asteroid belt may have even exposed the cores of early differentiated C-type planetesimals.

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Oort cloud (exo)planets

Dynamical instabilities among giant planets are thought to be nearly ubiquitous, and culminate in the ejection of one or more planets into interstellar space. Here we perform N-body simulations of dynamical instabilities while accounting for torques from the galactic tidal field. We find that a fraction of planets that would otherwise have been ejected are instead trapped on very wide orbits analogous to those of Oort cloud comets. The fraction of ejected planets that are trapped ranges from 1-10%, depending on the initial planetary mass distribution. The local galactic density has a modest effect on the trapping efficiency and the orbital radii of trapped planets. The majority of Oort cloud planets survive for Gyr timescales. Taking into account the demographics of exoplanets, we estimate that one in every 200-3000 stars could host an Oort cloud planet. This value is likely an overestimate, as we do not account for instabilities that take place at early enough times to be affected by their host stars' birth cluster, or planet stripping from passing stars. If the Solar System's dynamical instability happened after birth cluster dissolution, there is a ~7% chance that an ice giant was captured in the Sun's Oort cloud.

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Giants are bullies: how their growth influences systems of inner sub-Neptunes and super-Earths

Observations point to a correlation between outer giants and inner sub-Neptunes, unexplained by simulations so far. We utilize N-body simulations including pebble and gas accretion as well as planetary migration to investigate how the gas accretion rates influence the formation of systems of inner sub-Neptunes and outer gas giants as well as the eccentricity distribution of the outer giant planets. Less efficient envelope contraction rates allow a more efficient formation of systems with inner sub-Neptunes and outer giants. This is caused by the fact that the cores formed in the inner disc are too small to accrete large envelopes and only cores growing in the outer disc can become giants. As a result, instabilities between the outer giant planets do not necessarily destroy the inner systems of sub-Neptunes unlike simulations where giant planets can form closer in. Our simulations show that up to 50% of the systems of cold Jupiters could have inner sub-Neptunes, in agreement with observations. Our simulations show a good agreement with the eccentricity distribution of giants, even though we find a slight mismatch to the mass and semi-major axes distributions. Synthetic transit observations of the inner systems (r<0.7 AU) reveal an excellent match to the Kepler observations, where our simulations match the period ratios of adjacent planet pairs. Thus, the breaking the chains model for super-Earth and sub-Neptune formation remains consistent with observations even when outer giant planets are present. However, simulations with outer giant planets produce more systems with mostly only one inner planet and with larger eccentricities, in contrast to simulations without outer giants. We thus predict that systems with truly single close-in planets are more likely to host outer gas giants and we consequently suggest RV follow-up observations of these systems to constrain the formation pathway.

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