English

Jupiter's "Cold" Formation in the Protosolar Disk Shadow: An Explanation for the Planet's Uniformly Enriched Atmosphere

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2021-07-07 v1

Abstract

Atmospheric compositions offer valuable clues to planetary formation and evolution. Jupiter has been the most well-studied giant planet in terms of its atmosphere; however, the origin of the Jovian atmospheric composition remains a puzzle as the abundances of nitrogen and noble gases as high as those of other elements could only originate from extremely cold environments. We propose a novel idea for explaining the Jovian atmospheric composition: Dust pileup at the H2_2O snow line casts a shadow and cools the Jupiter orbit so that N2_2 and noble gases can freeze. Planetesimals or a core formed in the shadowed region can enrich nitrogen and noble gases as much as other elements through their dissolution in the envelope. We compute the temperature structure of a shadowed protosolar disk with radiative transfer calculations. Then, we investigate the radial volatile distributions and predict the atmospheric composition of Jupiter with condensation calculations. We find that the vicinity of the current Jupiter orbit, approximately 33--7 AU7~{\rm AU}, could be as cold as 30 K30~{\rm K} if the small-dust surface density varies by a factor of 30\gtrsim30 across the H2_2O snow line. According to previous grain growth simulations, this condition could be achieved by weak disk turbulence if silicate grains are more fragile than icy grains. The shadow can cause the condensation of most volatile substances, namely N2_2 and Ar. We demonstrate that the dissolution of shadowed solids can explain the elemental abundance patterns of the Jovian atmosphere even if proto-Jupiter was formed near Jupiter's current orbit. The disk shadow may play a vital role in controlling atmospheric compositions. The effect of the shadow also impacts the interpretation of upcoming observations of exoplanetary atmospheres by JWST.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2106.09084,
  title  = {Jupiter's "Cold" Formation in the Protosolar Disk Shadow: An Explanation for the Planet's Uniformly Enriched Atmosphere},
  author = {Kazumasa Ohno and Takahiro Ueda},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.09084},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in A&A Letters (9 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables)