Challenges in Forming the Solar System's Giant Planet Cores via Pebble Accretion

Abstract: Though ~10 Earth mass rocky/icy cores are commonly held as a prerequisite for the formation of gas giants, theoretical models still struggle to explain how these embryos can form within the lifetimes of gaseous circumstellar disks. In recent years, aerodynamic-aided accretion of "pebbles," objects ranging from centimeters to meters in size, has been suggested as a potential solution to this long-standing problem. While pebble accretion has been demonstrated to be extremely effective in local simulations that look at the detailed behavior of these pebbles in the vicinity of a single planetary embryo, to date there have been no global simulations demonstrating the effectiveness of pebble accretion in a more complicated, multi-planet environment. Therefore, we have incorporated the aerodynamic-aided accretion physics into LIPAD, a Lagrangian code that can follow the collisional / accretional / dynamical evolution of a protoplanetary system, to investigate how pebble accretion manifests itself in the larger planet formation picture. We find that under generic circumstances, pebble accretion naturally leads to an "oligarchic" type of growth in which a large number of planetesimals grow to similar-sized planets. In particular, our simulations tend to form hundreds of Mars- and Earth-mass objects between 4 and 10 AU. While the merging of some oligarchs may allow them to grow massive enough to form giant planet cores, leftover oligarchs lead to planetary systems that cannot be consistent with our own solar system. We investigate various ideas presented in the literature (including evaporation fronts and planet traps) and find that none easily overcome this tendency toward oligarchic growth.