Test
Test
Test
AND
E RIK A SPHAUG 3
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; sliu26@ucsc.edu
2 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; yahori@ucsc.edu, lin@ucolick.org
3 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA; easphaug@asu.edu
Astrobiology Center, National Institute of Natural Sciences and National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Osawa 2-21-1, Mitaka, Tokyo 1818588, Japan
5 Kavli Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing, China
6 Institute for Advanced Studies, Tsinghua University and National Astronomical Observatory of China, Beijing, China
Accepted to ApJ
ABSTRACT
Mini-Neptunes and volatile-poor super-Earths coexist on adjacent orbits in proximity to host stars such as Kepler-36 and
Kepler-11. Several post-formation processes have been proposed for explaining the origin of the compositional diversity between
neighboring planets: the mass loss via stellar XUV irradiation, degassing of accreted material, and in-situ accumulation of the
disk gas. Close-in planets are also likely to experience giant impacts during the advanced stage of planet formation. This study
examines the possibility of transforming volatile-rich super-Earths / mini-Neptunes into volatile-depleted super-Earths through
giant impacts. We present the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of giant impacts in the accretionary and
disruptive regimes. Target planets are modeled with a three-layered structure composed of an iron core, silicate mantle and
hydrogen/helium envelope. In the disruptive case, the giant impact can remove most of the H/He atmosphere immediately and
homogenize the refractory material in the planetary interior. In the accretionary case, the planet is able to retain more than
half of the original gaseous envelope, while a compositional gradient suppresses efficient heat transfer as the planetary interior
undergoes double-diffusive convection. After the giant impact, a hot and inflated planet cools and contracts slowly. The extended
atmosphere enhances the mass loss via both a Parker wind induced by thermal pressure and hydrodynamic escape driven by the
stellar XUV irradiation. As a result, the entire gaseous envelope is expected to be lost due to the combination of those processes
in both cases. Based on our results, we propose that Kepler-36b may have been significantly devolatilized by giant impacts, while
a substantial fraction of Kepler-36cs atmosphere may remain intact. Furthermore, the stochastic nature of giant impacts may
account for the observed large dispersion in the massradius relationship of close-in super-Earths and mini-Neptunes (at least to
some extent).
Subject headings: equation of state hydrodynamics planets and satellites: formation planets and
satellites: interiors stars: individual (Kepler-36, Kepler-11)
1. INTRODUCTION
Liu et al.
Collisional devolatilization
TABLE 1
M ASS AND ENERGY BUDGETS FOR THE LOW AND HIGH SPEED IMPACTS .
vimp
(km/s)
10.96
53.06
MT
MI
UT
Ironb
Rockc
H/Hed
Iron
Rock
Iron
Rock
H/He
1.344
3.115
2.663
6.129
0.297
0.746
0.334
0.334
0.663
0.662
1.676
3.449
3.315
6.289
0.208
0.151
4.746
21.890
Ek,T
0.441
4.529
UI
Ek,I
0.516
0.407
2.092
72.338
Ek
rP e
rH f
rP
rH
9.176
31.039
9.442
32.810
0.186
0.240
0.215
0.311
a Integral quantities M, U and E correspond to mass, internal energy and kinetic energy, respectively. Subscript T and I denote the target and the impactor. Integral quantities without
k
additional subscripts are measured at the end point of our simulations. Mass data are in units of Earth mass and energy data are in units of 1039 erg.
b, c, d Mass of species iron, rock and H/He, respectively.
e The integral quantity is measured within the original radius of the target (cf. Figure 2 and 7).
f The integral quantity is measured within the Hill radius (2.62 1010 and 3.21 1010 cm, respectively).
(a)
(e)
(d)
109 cm
(b)
( g cm-3 )
(c)
101
10-3
1010 cm
10-7
F IG . 1. Snapshots of the giant impact simulation between a 4.3 M super-Earth and an Earth-mass planet at the escape velocity vesc . The density distribution
across slices in the planets orbital plane with density range [104 , 2.5 101 ] g cm3 (represented by colors ranging from purple to white) before the impact
(panel a), immediately after (b), at 1.56 hours (c), and at 18 hours after the impact (d). Panel e shows an enlarged view of the panel d. With a radius 2.62 1010 cm,
the dashed circle overplotted on the planet indicates its Hill sphere at a distance of 0.1 AU from a solar-mass star. The parent star is in the direction of the white
arrow.
the impact, the efficiency of insolation due to stellar irradiation on the planets surface and the efficiency of heat transfer
in its interior determine the mass loss rate from the inflated
planet (Owen & Wu 2015). Here we must also consider that
the giant impact has left behind a massive debris torus that
can remain opaque for some time.
Part of the analysis and visualization presented in Section 3
is generated using the YT package (Turk et al. 2011) and the
VisIt software (Childs et al. 2012).
3. RESULTS
Liu et al.
Rock
H/He
Mass fraction
0.8
H / He
4
3
0.6
0.4
Iron
Silicate rock
0.2
510 8
10 9
510 9
Enclosed mass ( M )
Iron
1.0
10 10
Radius ( cm )
H/He density
(g / cm3)
2.0
0.2
0.02
0.002
2 10-4
Rock density
(g / cm3)
10.0
1.0
0.1
0.01
0.001
Iron density
(g / cm3)
25.0
11.18
5.0
2.236
1.0
Collisional devolatilization
Iron
Silicate
H/He
F IG . 4. The mass fraction slices of each species through the orbital plane at 18 hours after the low-speed impact. A significant degree of mixing is established
due to the turbulent mixing as well as hydrodynamic instabilities during the post-impact expansion phase. Dashed circles represent the the Hill sphere with a
radius of 2.62 1010 cm.
0.8
ZSiO2
0.7
0.5
0.4
0.3
ZFe
10-1
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
0.6
109
Radius (cm)
10-2
1010
the target and the impactor prior to the impact. This difference arises because the collision is accretionary, i.e. a large
amount of impactors mass is delivered to the interior of the
target. As a result, not only most of the kinetic energy but
also some portion of the gravitational potential energy is converted into the post-impact internal energy. Therefore, one
would expect that the temperature of the planets interior to
increase substantially after the impact.
3.2. High-speed model 2
The consequences of high-speed impact is similar to those
of the low-speed counterpart in terms of shock propagation
throughout the target after the impact, mass loss via Roche
lobe overflow and gradually-decaying oscillations inside the
planet (Figure 6). Despite those general similarities, the highspeed impact differs from the low-speed one in three respects.
First, the high-speed impact is erosive. The mass of the target planet at 21.5 hours after the impact is about 9.9M , i.e.,
0.1M is stripped off from the target by the impactor. Thus,
the total mass loss is 1.1 M . Besides, a significant amount
of mass is levitated at the top of the atmosphere (see Figure
7). A breakdown of the mass budget in the Hill sphere (i.e.,
3.211010 cm in this case) shows that the impactor successfully deposits all its iron material into the target, while most
of the impactors rocky material is ejected (see also Table 1).
And the target retains about 1/5 of its original atmosphere
after such an energetic impact.
Second, silicate rock material becomes the dominant
species in the planets atmosphere (Figure 7 and 8). As a result, the compositional gradient is nearly zero out to the Hills
radius, indicating a homogeneous distribution of the heavy
material inside the bulk of the target (see Figure 5). In contrast to the low-velocity model 1, the negligible compositional
gradient can not suppress convection in the interior of the target planet. Nevertheless, iron material remains concentrated
near the center of the planet as in case of the low-speed model
1.
Third, the planet becomes less bound gravitationally. The
mass contained within the targets original size is much less
(see Figure 7). In terms of the energy budget, most of the kinetic energy is carried away by the unbound mass and only
a fraction of it is directly converted to the planets internal
energy. However, the gravitational potential energy released
by the sedimentation of rock material in the atmosphere be-
Liu et al.
(a)
(e)
(d)
109 cm
(b)
( g cm-3 )
(c)
101
10-3
1010 cm
10-7
F IG . 6. Snapshots of the giant impact simulation between a 10 M super-Earth and an Earth-mass planet at 3 vesc . Colormaps and symbols are same as in
Figure 1. Panels a, b, c and d are snapshots taken at the commencement of the impact, at 15 minutes, at 1.5 hours and at 21.5 hours after the impact, respectively.
Panel e shows an enlarged view of the panel d. The Hill sphere illustrated by the dashed circle has a radius of 3.21 1010 cm.
Iron
1.0
Rock
H/He
10
0.8
0.6
0.4
4
Iron
Silicate rock
0.2
0
10 8
510 8 10 9
510 9 10 10
Enclosed mass ( M )
Mass fraction
H / He
Radius ( cm )
F IG . 7. Mass fraction area plot and enclosed mass line plot at 21.5 hours
after the high-speed impact. Symbols have the same meanings as in Figure 2.
initial gaseous envelope of a target super-Earth is mostly retained during the low-velocity impact, it is severely depleted
shortly after the high-velocity impact. In this context, we suggest that giant impacts of varying energy can effectively devolatilize super-Earths / mini-Neptunes, and can diversify the
compositions and interior structures of these mid-sized extrasolar planets, perhaps as occurred in our terrestrial system (see
e.g. Asphaug 2014).
The interior and atmosphere of a post-impact planet can
achieve a thermal equilibrium state after a long-term evolution, which is difficult and cost-ineffective to study by performing hydrodynamic simulations. Alternatively, the radiative cooling timescale (rad ) can be estimated from the rate of
temperature change in an atmospheric layer via the outgoing
infrared radiation: rad PCp /(4gT 3 ), where P and T are
the pressure and temperature near the photosphere obtained
from the end state of hydrodynamic simulations, g is the surface gravity, and Cp is the specific heat capacity at a constant
pressure, and is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Under the
intense radiation from a 1 M central star, an isothermal layer
develops in the planets residual upper atmosphere.
At the current location of Kepler 36b and c, the equilibrium
temperature due to stellar irradiation is 900 K. Adopting
EOS of an ideal gas for H/He and the gas opacity of Freedman
et al. (2008), we find that the H/He gas within the Hill sphere
is optically thick. At the photosphere, we used P 2g/3
and is the opacity to estimate rad to be larger than several
days. This estimate justifies, a posteriori the neglect of stellar
irradiation in our impact simulations (see 2). Since this cooling time scale is much longer than the dynamical time scale,
we can also assume that after a giant impact, a heated planet
evolves adiabatically into a hydrostatic equilibrium.
During the post-impact phase, the planets atmosphere and
interior contract as the planet cools. Above the photosphere, a
Collisional devolatilization
Iron
Silicate
H/He
F IG . 8. The mass fraction slices of each species through the orbital plane at 21.5 hours after the high-speed impact. Mixing becomes less efficient because
most of the H/He envelope has been blown away by the impactor. Dashed circles represent the Hill sphere with a radius of 3.21 1010 cm.
stellar irradiation, either. Note that the stellar tidal field is crucial in this context because it can continuously remove planetary outer atmosphere that is beyond the Hill sphere. For
giant impacts happen further away from the host star, tidal
stripping becomes inefficient. And the outcome of a giant impact is determined by the mass ratio, impact speed and impact
angle (Asphaug 2010; Leinhardt & Stewart 2012; Stewart &
Leinhardt 2012).
To summarize, severe giant impacts can significantly devolatilize close-in super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. The compositional dichotomy between Kepler-36 b and c can be explained by their distinct impact histories along with the formation of the closely packed system, i.e. Kepler-36b experienced substantial giant impacts, and in the meanwhile Kepler36c survived from being heavily bombarded. In addition, we
speculate that giant impacts may have been imprinted in the
large dispersion in the massradius relationship of close-in
sub-Neptune-sized planets, as giant impacts occur stochastically and can diversify planetary interior and atmosphere otherwise well constrained.
In our solar system, there may be evidence for a similar
though more subtle dichotomy. Despite their similar masses,
radii, and compositions, thermal evolution models of Uranus
and Neptune suggest that right after their formation, Neptune may have been relatively luminous but Uranus relatively
faint (e.g. Hubbard & Macfarlane 1980; Fortney et al. 2011).
Stevenson (1986) suggested that this dichotomy may be accounted for if a violent head-on collision yielded a hot and
homogeneous interior of Neptune, whereas an oblique collision caused a tilted Uranus with a stably-stratified interior.
The results presented here imply that the former scenario for
Neptune may be possible.
We thank Jonathan Fortney, Pascale Garaud, James Guillochon, Don Korycansky and Xiaojia Zhang for fruitful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee
for helpful suggestions to improve the clarity of this
manuscript. S.-F.L. and E.A. are sponsored by the NASA
grant NNX13AR66G. Y.H. is supported by Grant-in-Aid for
JSPS Fellows (No.25000465) and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research on Innovative Areas (No. 26103711) from MEXT
of Japan. Supports from a UC/Lab Fee grant, an IGPPS grant
and the NSF grant 1211394 are also acknowledged. Numerical computations were carried out on the Laohu cluster at
Liu et al.
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