arXiv subjects

Sarah T. Stewart

Publications and source records attributed to Sarah T. Stewart.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Thermal and rotational effects of giant impacts during terrestrial planet accretion

Terrestrial planets likely experienced one or more giant impacts during their formation that inflicted large thermal, chemical, and rotational perturbations. The early states of terrestrial planets are expected to be dominated by the thermal and rotational outcomes of giant impacts, but critical parameters that control internal processes, such as the pressures and temperatures of core formation, are not fully understood. Here we present the results from a representative suite of collisions between Moon- to super-Earth-mass bodies using the SWIFT hydrocode and updated ANEOS equations of state, allowing more robust temperature calculations. Using these results and the HERCULES planetary structure code, we calculated the contributions from thermal energy, gravitational potential energy, and post-impact rotation on the pressure-temperature conditions of the core-mantle boundary (CMB). We derived scaling laws for the efficiency of impact heating, mantle-core heat partitioning, and CMB pressures and temperatures. We find that post-impact CMB pressures are generally lower than previously assumed, due to both thermal and rotational effects. Full mantle melting is common and a substantial fraction of mantle material is heated above the Fe-MgO solvus closure temperature for impacts with modified specific energies $Q_S>10^6$ J/kg, implying that a miscible layer could form close to the CMB for many giant impacts. The comparatively low internal pressures and large regions of metal-silicate miscibility after giant impacts have significant effects on the processes of core formation, and our work indicates that metal-silicate equilibration would occur near the CMB during later post-impact cooling, consistent with Earth's geochemistry.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2025

Planetesimal Impact Vapor Plumes and Nebular Shocks form Chondritic Mixtures

The origin of chondrules, and the chondritic sedimentary rocks that dominate the meteoritic record, is a long-standing problem in planetary science. Here, we develop a physical model for the formation of chondritic mixtures as an outcome of vaporizing collisions between planetesimals that were dynamically excited by the growth and migration of planets. We present calculations of nebular shock waves generated by impact vapor plumes and focus on aspects of the plume interaction with the nebular gas and dust that have been neglected in previous studies of impact ejecta. We find that, when water dominates the vapor, the plumes are relatively cool. However, the plume expansion is supersonic and can drive strong shock waves in the dusty nebular gas. Portions of these nebular shock fronts initially melt nebular dust, forming chondrules that are coupled to the moving front. As the shock front expands and cools, the chondrules solidify while the shock front entrains additional dust. Eventually, the plume expansion stalls and then hydrodynamically collapses, turbulently mixing variably processed dust and size-sorted chondrules. For probable impact parameters and nebular conditions during giant planet growth and migration, the impact-generated mixtures have characteristics that span the range observed in chondritic meteorites, providing an environment for rapid formation of chondritic assemblages after chondrule formation. Our impact vapor and nebular shocks (IVANS) model links chondrule formation to the overall context of planet formation and provides a framework for interpreting the detailed chronological and geochemical record contained in chondritic meteorites.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2023

Atmospheric loss in giant impacts depends on pre-impact surface conditions

Earth likely acquired much of its inventory of volatile elements during the main stage of its formation. Some of Earth's proto-atmosphere must therefore have survived the giant impacts, collisions between planet-sized bodies, that dominate the latter phases of accretion. Here we use a suite of 1D hydrodynamic simulations and impedance match calculations to quantify the effect that pre-impact surface conditions (such as atmospheric pressure and presence of an ocean) have on the efficiency of atmospheric and ocean loss from proto-planets during giant impacts. We find that -- in the absence of an ocean -- lighter, hotter, and lower-pressure atmospheres are more easily lost. The presence of an ocean can significantly increase the efficiency of atmospheric loss compared to the no-ocean case, with a rapid transition between low and high loss regimes as the mass ratio of atmosphere to ocean decreases. However, contrary to previous thinking, the presence of an ocean can also reduce atmospheric loss if the ocean is not sufficiently massive, typically less than a few times the atmospheric mass. Volatile loss due to giant impacts is thus highly sensitive to the surface conditions on the colliding bodies. To allow our results to be combined with 3D impact simulations, we have developed scaling laws that relate loss to the ground velocity and surface conditions. Our results demonstrate that the final volatile budgets of planets are critically dependent on the exact timing and sequence of impacts experienced by their precursor planetary embryos, making atmospheric properties a highly stochastic outcome of accretion.

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arXiv2023

Sesquinary Catastrophe For Close-In Moons with Dynamically Excited Orbits

We identify a new mechanism that can lead to the destruction of small, close-in planetary satellites. If a small moon close to the planet has a sizable eccentricity and inclination, its ejecta that escape to planetocentric orbit would often re-impact with much higher velocity due to the satellite's and the fragment's orbits precessing out of alignment. If the impacts of returning ejecta result in net erosion, a runaway process can occur which may end in disruption of the satellite, and we term this process ``sesquinary catastrophe''. We expect the moon to re-accrete, but on an orbit with significantly lower eccentricity and inclination. We find that the large majority of small close-in moons in the Solar System, have orbits that are immune to sesquinary catastrophe. The exceptions include a number of resonant moonlets of Saturn for which resonances may affect the velocities of re-impact of their own debris. Additionally, we find that Neptune's moon Naiad (and to a lesser degree, Jupiter's Thebe) must have substantial internal strength, in line with prior estimates based on Roche limit stability. We also find that sesquinary instability puts important constraints on the plausible past orbits of Phobos and Deimos or their progenitors.

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arXiv2022

Did Earth eat its leftovers? Impact ejecta as a component of the late veneer

The presence of highly siderophile elements in Earth's mantle indicates that a small percentage of Earth's mass was delivered after the last giant impact in a stage of 'late accretion.' There is ongoing debate about the nature of late-accreted material and the sizes of late-accreted bodies. Earth appears isotopically most similar to enstatite chondrites and achondrites. It has been suggested that late accretion must have been dominated by enstatite-like bodies that originated in the inner disk, rather than ordinary or carbonaceous chondrites. Here, we examine the provenances of 'leftover' planetesimals present in the inner disk in the late stages of accretion simulations. Dynamically excited planet formation produces planets and embryos with similar provenances, suggesting that the Moon-forming impactor may have had a stable isotope composition very similar to the proto-Earth. Commonly, some planetesimal-sized bodies with similar provenances to the Earth-like planets are left at the end of the main stage of growth. The most chemically-similar planetesimals are typically fragments of proto-planets ejected millions of years earlier. If these similar-provenance bodies are later accreted by the planet, they will represent late-accreted mass that naturally matches Earth's composition. The planetesimal-sized bodies that exist during the giant impact phase can have large core mass fractions, with core provenances similar to the proto-Earth. These bodies are an important potential source for highly siderophile elements. The range of core fractions in leftover planetesimals complicates simple inferences as to the mass and origin of late accretion based on the highly siderophile elements in the mantle.

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arXiv2022

Large Impacts onto the Early Earth: Planetary Sterilization and Iron Delivery

Late accretion onto the Hadean Earth included large impacts that could have influenced early habitability, either by sterilizing the planet or alternatively catalyzing the origin of life by delivering iron required to create a reducing environment/atmosphere. We present 3D numerical simulations of 1500-3400 km diameter impacts on the early Earth in order to quantify their effects on planetary habitability. We find sterilizing impact events require larger projectiles than previously assumed, with a 2000-2700 km diameter impactor required to completely melt Earth's surface and an extrapolated >700 km diameter impactor required for ocean-vaporization. We also find that reducing environments are less likely to arise following large impacts than previously suggested, because >70% of the projectile iron is deposited in the crust and upper mantle where it is not immediately available to reduce surface water and contribute to forming a reducing atmosphere. Although the largest expected late accretion impacts (~1 lunar mass) delivered sufficient iron to the atmosphere to have reduced an entire ocean mass of water, such impacts would also have melted the entire surface, potentially sequestering condensing iron that is not oxidized quickly. The hypothesis that life emerged in the aftermath of large impacts requires an efficient mechanism of harnessing the reducing power of iron sequestered in the crust/mantle, or an origin of life pathway that operates in more weakly-reducing post-impact environments that require smaller quantities of impact-delivered iron.

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arXiv2022

New Perspectives on the Exoplanet Radius Gap from a Mathematica Tool and Visualized Water Equation of State

Recent astronomical observations obtained with the Kepler and TESS missions and their related ground-based follow-ups revealed an abundance of exoplanets with a size intermediate between Earth and Neptune. A low occurrence rate of planets has been identified at around twice the size of Earth, known as the exoplanet radius gap or radius valley. We explore the geometry of this gap in the mass-radius diagram, with the help of a Mathematica plotting tool developed with the capability of manipulating exoplanet data in multidimensional parameter space, and with the help of visualized water equations of state in the temperature-density graph and the entropy-pressure graph. We show that the radius valley can be explained by a compositional difference between smaller, predominantly rocky planets and larger planets that exhibit greater compositional diversity including cosmic ices (water, ammonia, methane) and gaseous envelopes. In particular, among the larger planets, when viewed from the perspective of planet equilibrium temperature, the hot ones are consistent with ice-dominated composition without significant gaseous envelopes, while the cold ones have more diverse compositions, including various amounts of gaseous envelopes.

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arXiv2021

Tidal Evolution of the Earth-Moon System with a High Initial Obliquity

A giant impact origin for the Moon is generally accepted, but many aspects of lunar formation remain poorly understood and debated. Ćuk et al. (2016) proposed that an impact that left the Earth-Moon system with high obliquity and angular momentum could explain the Moon's orbital inclination and isotopic similarity to Earth. In this scenario, instability during the Laplace Plane transition, when the Moon's orbit transitions from the gravitational influence of Earth's figure to that of the Sun, would both lower the system's angular momentum to its present-day value and generate the Moon's orbital inclination. Recently, Tian and Wisdom (2020) discovered new dynamical constraints on the Laplace Plane transition and concluded that the Earth-Moon system could not have evolved from an initial state with high obliquity. Here we demonstrate that the Earth-Moon system with an initially high obliquity can evolve into the present state, and we identify a spin-orbit secular resonance as a key dynamical mechanism in the later stages of the Laplace Plane transition. Some of the simulations by Tian and Wisdom (2020) did not encounter this late secular resonance, as their model suppressed obliquity tides and the resulting inclination damping. Our results demonstrate that a giant impact that left Earth with high angular momentum and high obliquity ($θ> 61^{\circ}$) is a promising scenario for explaining many properties of the Earth-Moon system, including its angular momentum and obliquity, the geochemistry of Earth and the Moon, and the lunar inclination.

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arXiv2021

Origin of the Moon

The Earth-Moon system is unusual in several respects. The Moon is roughly 1/4 the radius of the Earth - a larger satellite-to-planet size ratio than all known satellites other than Pluto's Charon. The Moon has a tiny core, perhaps with only ~1% of its mass, in contrast to Earth whose core contains nearly 30% of its mass. The Earth-Moon system has a high total angular momentum, implying a rapidly spinning Earth when the Moon formed. In addition, the early Moon was hot and at least partially molten with a deep magma ocean. Identification of a model for lunar origin that can satisfactorily explain all of these features has been the focus of decades of research.

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arXiv2020

Colliding in the shadows of giants: Planetesimal collisions during the growth and migration of gas giants

Giant planet migration is an important phenomenon in the evolution of planetary systems. Recent works have shown that giant planet growth and migration can shape the asteroid belt, but these works have not considered interactions between planetesimals. We have calculated the evolution of planetesimal disks, including planetesimal-planetesimal collisions, during gas giant growth and migration. The numbers, locations, and impact velocities of these collisions depend on the specific growth and migration path. We find that giant planet growth alone has little effect on impact velocities, and most of the planetesimals scattered by growing giants do not undergo collisions with each other during the growth period. In contrast, we find that giant planet migration induces large numbers of high velocity collisions between planetesimals. These impacts have sufficient velocities to cause shock-induced vaporization for both water ice and silicate components of planetesimals, and to cause catastrophic disruption of the bodies. New bodies may form from impact debris. Collisional evolution reduces the efficiency of planetesimal implantation into the asteroid belt via giant planet growth and migration. A small fraction of the largest planetesimals implanted into the asteroid belt would have been processed via collisions. We identify important consequences of planetesimal collisions that have not been considered in planet accretion models. The prevalence of high velocity collisions during giant planet migration, and their potential links to the properties of meteorites, and the formation of chondrules, makes impact vaporization a critically important phenomenon. The consequences of vaporizing planetesimal constituents require further detailed study. New collision outcome models for impacts within the nebula, and models for new planetesimal formation are needed.

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arXiv2020

Giant impacts stochastically change the internal pressures of terrestrial planets

Pressure is a key parameter in the physics and chemistry of planet formation and evolution. Previous studies have erroneously assumed that internal pressures monotonically increase with the mass of a body. Using smoothed particle hydrodynamics and potential field method calculations, we demonstrate that the hot, rapidly-rotating bodies produced by giant impacts can have much lower internal pressures than cool, slowly-rotating planets of the same mass. Pressures subsequently increase due to thermal and rotational evolution of the body. Using the Moon-forming impact as an example, we show that the internal pressures after the collision could have been less than half that in present-day Earth. The current pressure profile was not established until Earth cooled and the Moon receded, a process that may take up to 10s Myr after the last giant impact. Our work defines a new paradigm for pressure evolution during accretion of terrestrial planets: stochastic changes driven by impacts.

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arXiv2020

Construction and Calibration of a Streaked Optical Spectrometer for Shock Temperature

Here we describe the implementation and calibration of a streaked visible spectrometer (SVS) for optical pyrometry and emission/absorption spectroscopy on light gas gun platforms in the UC Davis Shock Compression Laboratory. The diagnostic consists of an optical streak camera coupled to a spectrometer to provide temporally and spectrally-resolved records of visible emission from dynamically-compressed materials. Fiber optic coupling to the sample enables a small diagnostic footprint on the target face and flexibility of operation on multiple launch systems without the need for open optics. We present the details of calibration (time, wavelength and spectral radiance) for absolute temperature determination and present benchmark measurements of system performance.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Silicate Melting and Vaporization during Rocky Planet Formation

Collisions that induce melting and vaporization can have a substantial effect on the thermal and geochemical evolution of planets. However, the thermodynamics of major minerals are not well known at the extreme conditions attained during planet formation. We obtained new data at the Sandia Z Machine and use published thermodynamic data for the major mineral forsterite (Mg$_2$SiO$_4$) to calculate the specific entropy in the liquid region of the principal Hugoniot. We use our calculated specific entropy of shocked forsterite, and revised entropies for shocked silica, to determine the critical impact velocities for melting or vaporization upon decompression from the shocked state to 1 bar and the triple points, which are near the pressures of the solar nebula. We also demonstrate the importance of the initial temperature on the criteria for vaporization. Applying these results to $N$-body simulations of terrestrial planet formation, we find that up to 20 to 40% of the total system mass is processed through collisions with velocities that exceed the criteria for incipient vaporization at the triple point. Vaporizing collisions between small bodies are an important component of terrestrial planet formation.

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arXiv2020

The Shock Physics of Giant Impacts: Key Requirements for the Equations of State

We discuss major challenges in modeling giant impacts between planetary bodies, focusing on the equations of state (EOS). During the giant impact stage of planet formation, rocky planets are melted and partially vaporized. However, most EOS models fail to reproduce experimental constraints on the thermodynamic properties of the major minerals over the required phase space. Here, we present an updated version of the widely-used ANEOS model that includes a user-defined heat capacity limit in the thermal free energy term. Our revised model for forsterite (Mg$_2$SiO$_4$), a common proxy for the mantles of rocky planets, provides a better fit to material data over most of the phase space of giant impacts. We discuss the limitations of this model and the Tillotson equation of state, a commonly used alternative model.

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arXiv2019

Early Dynamics of the Lunar Core

The Moon is known to have a small liquid core, and it is thought that in the distant past the core may have produced strong magnetic fields recorded in lunar samples. Here we implement a numerical model of lunar orbital and rotational dynamics that includes the effects of a liquid core. In agreement with previous work, we find that the lunar core is dynamically decoupled from the lunar mantle, and that this decoupling happened very early in lunar history. Our model predicts that the lunar core rotates sub-synchronously, and the difference between the core and the mantle rotational rates was significant when the Moon had a high forced obliquity during and after the Cassini State transition. We find that the presence of the lunar liquid core further destabilizes synchronous rotation of the mantle for a wide range of semimajor axes centered around the Cassini State transition. CMB torques make it even more likely that the Moon experienced large-scale inclination damping during the Cassini State transition. We present estimates for the mutual core-mantle obliquity as a function of Earth-Moon distance, and we discuss plausible absolute time-lines for this evolution. We conclude that our results are consistent with the hypothesis of a precession-driven early lunar dynamo and may explain the variability of the inferred orientation of the past lunar dynamo.

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arXiv2019

The energy budget and figure of Earth during recovery from the Moon-forming giant impact

Quantifying the energy budget of Earth in the first few million years following the Moon-forming giant impact is vital to understanding Earth's initial thermal state and the dynamics of lunar tidal evolution. After the impact, the body was substantially vaporized and rotating rapidly, very different from the planet we know today. The subsequent evolution of Earth's energy budget, as the body cooled and angular momentum was transferred during lunar tidal recession, has not been accurately calculated with all relevant energy components included. Here, we use giant impact simulations and planetary structure models to calculate the energy budget at stages in Earth's evolution. We show that the figure and internal structure of Earth changed substantially during its post-impact evolution and that changes in kinetic, potential, and internal energy were all significant. These changes have important implications for the dynamics of tidal recession and the thermal structure of early Earth.

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arXiv2018

The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial synestia

The giant impact hypothesis remains the leading theory for lunar origin. However, current models struggle to explain the Moon's composition and isotopic similarity with Earth. Here we present a new lunar origin model. High-energy, high-angular momentum giant impacts can create a post-impact structure that exceeds the corotation limit (CoRoL), which defines the hottest thermal state and angular momentum possible for a corotating body. In a typical super-CoRoL body, traditional definitions of mantle, atmosphere and disk are not appropriate, and the body forms a new type of planetary structure, named a synestia. Using simulations of cooling synestias combined with dynamic, thermodynamic and geochemical calculations, we show that satellite formation from a synestia can produce the main features of our Moon. We find that cooling drives mixing of the structure, and condensation generates moonlets that orbit within the synestia, surrounded by tens of bars of bulk silicate Earth (BSE) vapor. The moonlets and growing moon are heated by the vapor until the first major element (Si) begins to vaporize and buffer the temperature. Moonlets equilibrate with BSE vapor at the temperature of silicate vaporization and the pressure of the structure, establishing the lunar isotopic composition and pattern of moderately volatile elements. Eventually, the cooling synestia recedes within the lunar orbit, terminating the main stage of lunar accretion. Our model shifts the paradigm for lunar origin from specifying a certain impact scenario to achieving a Moon-forming synestia. Giant impacts that produce potential Moon-forming synestias were common at the end of terrestrial planet formation.

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arXiv2018

Tidal evolution of the Moon from a high-obliquity, high-angular-momentum Earth

In the giant impact hypothesis for lunar origin, the Moon accreted from an equatorial circum-terrestrial disk; however the current lunar orbital inclination of 5 degrees requires a subsequent dynamical process that is still debated. In addition, the giant impact theory has been challenged by the Moon's unexpectedly Earth-like isotopic composition. Here, we show that tidal dissipation due to lunar obliquity was an important effect during the Moon's tidal evolution, and the past lunar inclination must have been very large, defying theoretical explanations. We present a new tidal evolution model starting with the Moon in an equatorial orbit around an initially fast-spinning, high-obliquity Earth, which is a probable outcome of giant impacts. Using numerical modeling, we show that the solar perturbations on the Moon's orbit naturally induce a large lunar inclination and remove angular momentum from the Earth-Moon system. Our tidal evolution model supports recent high-angular momentum giant impact scenarios to explain the Moon's isotopic composition and provides a new pathway to reach Earth's climatically favorable low obliquity.

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