PF-10-0008

Evolving disk temperature and its effect on pebble population and planet formation

Areli Castrejon, Michiel Min, Inga Kamp, Uffe Grae Jorgensen

To date, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered; a sizeable amount of these planets lie in the intermediate mass range (1-10 Earth masses). The predominant theory to grow these planets is the the pebble accretion paradigm. In this formulation, larger particles denoted as pebbles, feel drag from the gaseous disk and are accreted onto growing protoplanets. The efficiency of pebble accretion allows planetary embryos to grow quickly, before the disk dissipates. The evolution of the pebble surface density is highly dependent on the temperature structure chosen. We follow an evolving temperature structure with and without a dust sublimation front. We find that the temperature evolution cannot be ignored in calculating the pebble dynamics and this has implications for the growth of planets. Following an evolving temperature leads to a longer-lived pebble surface density. The sustained surface density results in a large population of intermediate mass planets, in-line with observations. Following temporal evolution of our pebble and gas quantities allows us to tag a composition to them. This allows us to study the composition of a forming planet as a function of time.