Abstract
Planetesimals orbiting a protostar in a circumstellar disk are affected by gravitational interaction among themselves and by gas drag force due to disk gas. Within the Kyoto model of planetesimal accretion, the migration rate is interpreted as the inverse of the planetary formation time scale. Here, we study time scales of gravitational interaction and gas drag force and their influence on planetesimal migration in detail. Evaluating observations of 86 T Tauri stars (Beckwithet al., 1990), we find the mean radial temperature profile of circumstellar disks. The disk mass is taken to be 0.01M ⊙ in accordance with minimum mass models and observed T Tauri disks. The time scale of gravitational interaction between planetesimals is studied analogously to Chandrasekhar's stellar dynamics. Hence, Chandrasekhar's coefficient Λ, defined as the fraction between the mean separation of planetesimals and the impact parameter, plays an important role in determining the migration rate. We find ln Λ to lie between 5 and 10 within the protosolar disk. Our result is that, at the stage of disk evolution considered here, gas drag force affects the radial migration of planetesimals by a few orders of magnitude more than gravitational interaction.
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Neuhäuser, R., Feitzinger, J.V. Radial migration of planetesimals. Astrophys Space Sci 212, 49–56 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00984508
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00984508