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ACCEPTED TO A P J

Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 01/23/15

GIANT IMPACT: AN EFFICIENT MECHANISM FOR DEVOLATILIZATION OF SUPER-EARTHS


S HANG -F EI L IU () 1 , YASUNORI H ORI () 2,4 , D.N.C. L IN 2,5,6

AND

E RIK A SPHAUG 3

arXiv:1509.05772v1 [astro-ph.EP] 18 Sep 2015

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

Data obtained from the Kepler mission (Borucki et al. 2010)


indicate an abundant population of close-in planets with radius of Rp = 1 4 R (Petigura et al. 2013; Burke et al. 2014;
Dressing & Charbonneau 2015). Although the masses of only
a handful of those planets have been measured with radialvelocity or transit-timing variations (TTV) observations, a
large range of their mean densities p indicates that they have
diverse bulk compositions (e.g. see Fig.4 in Dressing et al.
2015). These kinematic and structural properties impose constraints on theories of planetary origin.
It has been suggested that these planets may have formed
through the coagulation of grains and planetesimals at their
present-day location (Hansen & Murray 2012; Chiang &
Laughlin 2013). Although all volatile grains in their natal
disks are sublimated in the proximity of their central stars,
embryos may have formed prolifically from refractory grains
(Li et al. submitted) and acquired or retained a modest amount
of hydrogen/helium atmosphere in situ with relatively low apparent mean densities (Ikoma & Hori 2012).
Close-in planets are exposed to intense XUV (extreme UV
and X-ray) irradiation from their host stars. Photoevaporation can significantly modify the structure of their atmosphere
(e.g., Owen & Wu 2013). One possible cause for the apparent dispersion in p is the retention efficiency of H/He atmospheres among planets around host stars (Lissauer et al. 2013)
with different XUV luminosities during their pre-main sequence stage. But around some host stars, high-density super-

Earths and low-density hot-Neptunes with similar Mp and P


(where Mp is the planetary mass and P is the orbital period)
coexist. Their p diversity cannot be simply attributed to the
XUV flux from their common host stars.
Around a particular sub-giant star, two planets, Kepler 36b
and c, were found (Carter et al. 2012) with adjacent orbits (P =
13.8 and 16.2 days), comparable masses (Mp = 4.46 0.3 M
and 8.10 0.53 M ), and radii (Rp = 1.48 0.03 R and
3.67 0.05 R ). The inferred p of the inner super-Earth
(Kepler-36b) matches that of an Earth-like composition and
that of the outer mini-Neptune (Kepler-36c) is consistent with
an internal composition of a thick hydrogen/helium (H/He)
envelope (8.6 1.3 wt. %, assuming an Earth-like core) atop
a rocky/iron core (Lopez & Fortney 2013). Although a fraction of Kepler 36cs atmosphere may be due to the degassing
of accreted planetesimals (Elkins-Tanton & Seager 2008) or
in-situ the accumulation of a residual disk gas onto its solid
core (Ikoma & Hori 2012). However, such a large density
contrast between these two closely-spaced planets is incompatible with either of these two accretion processes.
It is possible that these two planets may once have had a
similar amount of H/He atmosphere and their compositional
dichotomy could be caused by their different core masses
(Lopez & Fortney 2013). Provided that the lost mass is a small
fraction of Mp , their near 7:6 mean motion resonance (MMR)
orbits would not be significantly affected by it (Teyssandier
et al. 2015). However, Kepler 36c appears to have retained
its atmosphere and Kepler 36b does not, albeit the former has

Liu et al.

a smaller surface escape velocity and is expected to be more


vulnerable to photoevaporation than the latter. Another system with a similar dichotomy is Kepler 11b and c (Lissauer
et al. 2011).
Another scenario is that protoplanetary embryos formed
throughout the disk, including the volatile-rich cold outer
regions, and converged through type I migration to their
present-day locations in the proximity of their host stars
(Papaloizou & Terquem 2010; Ida et al. 2013). According
to the conventional accretion scenario, protoplanetary embryos emerge through oligarchic growth and experience cohesive collisions between embryos with comparable masses
(Kokubo & Ida 1998). The energy released in such catastrophic events intensely heats both the mantle and atmosphere
and may induce substantial losses of planetary atmosphere
(Schlichting 2014). The giant impact hypothesis is consistent
with the chaotic dynamics exhibited in the Kepler-36 system
(Deck et al. 2012). Hydrodynamic and N-body simulations
have revealed that stochastic/convergent migration can lead
to close encounters between the two planets and physical collisions with other embryos (Paardekooper et al. 2013; Quillen
et al. 2013).
Due to the stochastic nature of these giant impact events,
structural diversity among members of closely-packed, multiple short-period planet systems is the hallmark of oligarchic
growth, extensive migration, and giant impacts. This diversity
takes the form of different levels of shock processing, different final material inventories and planetary densities (Asphaug 2010).
In this paper we explore the possibility that structural diversity is established by giant impacts during the formation
of compact multiple-planet systems. Collisions and disruptions of differentiated super-Earths with terrestrial compositions (Marcus et al. 2009) or water : rock = 1 : 1 (Marcus
et al. 2010) have been previously simulated with the smoothed
particle hydrodynamics (SPH) scheme (Reufer et al. 2012).
However, there has been no systematic simulations of giant
impacts between super-Earths with H/He atmospheres.
In 2, we outline the numerical method and the initial and
boundary conditions used for these simulations. In our models, we adopt physical parameters similar to those of the Kepler 36 system and scrutinize the collisional origin of the
compositional diversity between Kepler-36b and c. In 3,
we present the results of two sets of numerical simulations
to show that energetic giant impacts can cause strong shocks
and lead to the ejection of a large amount of H/He envelope.
Shock dissipation also heats up the planetary atmosphere and
interior, elevate the mass loss rate induced by hydrodynamic
escape and radiative evaporation (Hbrard et al. 2004). We
summarize our results and discuss their implications in 4.
2. COMPUTATIONAL METHOD
Our three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations are based
on the framework of FLASH (Fryxell et al. 2000), an Eulerian code with an adaptive-mesh refinement (AMR) capability. This finite-volume scheme has advantages over most
commonly-used SPH codes in terms of capturing shock waves
as well as characterizing low-density and sparse regions. Besides, advection of different fluid species in a grid cell is allowed to obey their own advection equations, which is ideally
suited for mixing problems. The main purpose of this work
is to investigate the general aftermath of giant impacts, so our
study here is on head-on collisions.
In order to minimize the artefact of artificial diffusivity

(Tasker et al. 2008), collision simulations are performed in


a pair of planets center-of-mass frame rather than in the inertial reference frame in which they move through the numerical
grids with a Keplerian speed. The width of the computational
domain is 1 1013 cm on each side, and we choose an open
boundary condition for our simulations. A multiple expansion with a large angular number (Lmax = 60) about the center
of mass of the embryo pair is adopted in order to compute the
self-gravity with a sufficient angular resolution.
Most hydrodynamic simulations of giant impacts ignore the
presence of a central star and its tidal force. In the present
1/3
context, the Hill radius of a planet, rH = a q/3
(where
a is the semi-major axis of the planet and q is the mass ratio
of the planet to its parent star) is only an order of magnitude
larger than its physical size. Therefore, the tidal force of the
central star may have a significant effect on the planets postimpact evolution.
The orbit of the embryo pair around the host star is determined by solving a two-body problem that treats a central star
and the embryo pair as two separate point masses (Guillochon
et al. 2009). Here we consider giant impacts between a target
planet MT and an Earth-mass impactor MI at 0.1 AU separation from a 1 M star. Initially, the target and impactor are
held apart from their center of mass by a few targets radii until they have relaxed into a hydrostatic equilibrium subjected
to each others tidal perturbation. They are released with their
relative velocity gradually increased from rest to the values
listed in Table 1. Further acceleration is determined by their
mutual gravity.
Two simulations of head-on collisions in the accretionary
and disruptive regimes are performed. In the accretionary
model 1, MT = 4.3 M , i.e. close to the mass of Kepler36b,
p and the impact velocity vimp = vesc , where vesc =
2G(MT + MI )/(RT + RI ) is the two-body escape velocity. In
the disruptive model 2, MT = 10 M , i.e. the upper end of the
mass spectrum that is commonly refer to super-Earths, and
the impact velocity vimp = 3vesc comparable to the local Keplerian speed. Our model 2 represents the largest scale of
collisions that could happen to a close-in super-Earth with an
atmosphere. Impacts onto a less massive super-Earth at the
same speed lead to a more disruptive outcome.
In our models, the target is initially composed of an iron
core, silicate mantle, and H/He gaseous envelope (7.5 wt %),
while the impactor has the same layered structure except for it
has no atmosphere. The mass ratio of an iron core to a silicate
mantle is assumed to be 1 : 2 for all planets. We summarize the
masses of each species in the targets and impactors in Table 1.
The internal structure of all the target planets are resolved by
a numerical mesh with RT /d > 100, where RT is the targets
initial radius and d is the width of the smallest grid cells.
Previously, Liu et al. (2015) have applied an early version
of this scheme to investigate embryo impacts on gas giants.
In those simulations, we approximate the internal structure of
gas giants with a composite polytropic equation of state (Liu
et al. 2013). We assume that the multi-species fluid obeys
the Daltons law, i.e. the total pressure of a mixture of gas
equals the sum of the contributions of individual components.
The current study focuses on collisions between smaller planets with composition and internal structure similar to those of
the Earth or Neptune. For terrestrial types of planetary materials, we have incorporated the Tillotson equation of state
(EOS) to model iron cores and silicate mantles (see Appendix
I of Melosh 1989). We additionally model an H/He atmo-

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.

sphere (70 wt. % H2 and 30 wt. % He) assuming a polytropic


EOS (P ) with adiabatic index = 5/3. This simplified
assumption can be validated for temperatures below the excitation temperature of the H2 rotation band, 170K, and above
H2 dissociation temperature ( 2000 K) but below that for the
H and He atoms to be fully-ionized. For the intermediate
regime, our treatment underestimates the compressibility and
heat capacity of hydrogen, which may exaggerate an impactdriven atmospheric escape. However, the atmosphere of the
target is generally not sufficiently massive to stall the impactor
and to prevent the dissipation its kinetic energy near the targets core. We find that the computed turbulent mixing of
material and the mass loss rate of the atmosphere is relatively
insensitive to the specific H/He EOS model.
Giant impacts are violent and impulsive events. A new
quasi-hydrostatic equilibrium within the planets Hills radius
is generally established within a dynamical timescale (within
a day). During the transitory phase, we can neglect the effect
of stellar heating on the inflated atmosphere (see 4). After

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

3.1. Low-speed model 1


The compositional structure of a super Earth after a lowspeed collision with an Earth-mass impactor is shown in Figure 1. The initial mass of the target is 4.3 M . The impactors approaching speed is the escape velocity of the targetimpactor system. Panels a, b and c show snapshots of density
contours before, during, and at 1.56 hours after the impact.
Snapshots in panels d and e are taken at 18 hours after the im-

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 )

F IG . 2. Each shaded area illustrates the mass fraction of each species


as a function of radius at 18 hours after a low-speed giant impact. Grey,
light coral, and blue regions represent iron, silicate rock and H/He gas, respectively. Three vertical dot-dashed lines indicate the initial compositional
boundaries inside the target which has the three-layered structure. The dashed
lines from top to bottom show the cumulative mass (yellow), the enclosed
mass of silicate rock (red), iron (black), and H/He (blue) as a function of
radius in units of Earth mass.

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

F IG . 3. The cutaway view shows a snapshot after the contact between


rocky layers of the two planets and before the merger of their iron cores.
Blue, green and red colors represent partial densities of H/He, rock and iron
species, whichever is the dominant species of a grid cell. For most part of
the target, the total density of a grid cell is close to the partial density of the
dominant species because mixing is not severe. However, a small fraction
of H/He (less than 5 wt. %) being mixed with rock is responsible for the
formation of a low-density arced structure between compressed rocky layers.
The cubic box has a width of 4109 cm.

pact. At this time, the central region of the post-impact target


is mostly dynamically relaxed (see panel d), while the hot atmosphere extends well beyond the Hill radius and continues
to lose its mass via Roche lobe overflow (see also 4).
Since the total orbital energy of the target-impactor system
is nearly zero, this impact has accretion efficiency close to
but not quite one. The target gains mass after the impact (Table 1) but not all of it. The excess kinetic energy injected

by the projectile drives an outflow as the planet approaches a


hydrostatic equilibrium. As a result, the impact is not a perfect merger. The total mass loss (i.e. the mass that is failed
to be accreted by the target) at 18 hours after the impact is
0.1 M . This value is expected to increase slightly due to
the slowly-decaying oscillations in the tenuous outer part of
the atmosphere over a prolonged period of time. Accretion efficiency in low-velocity collisions can be substantially lower
than it is for the head-on cases considered here, because offaxis giant impacts can attempt to accreting too much angular momentum for a single planet or planet-satellite system to
sustain. The so-called hit and run regime is relevant at velocities intermediate to those considered here (Asphaug 2010).
The gravitationally-unbound mass, 0.1 M , is mostly
composed of H/He gas plus a minute contribution from iron
and silicate material (see Table 1). The impact leads to the
immediate ejection of nearly one third of the targets initial
H/He atmosphere. Most of the impactors mass is added to
that of the target. Consequently, the volatile fraction of the
target is significantly reduced.
The enclosed mass as a function of radius inside the Hill
sphere is plotted with a yellow dashed line in Figure 2. Most
of the planetary mass is confined within its original radius,
while the tenuous atmosphere spreads out by an order of magnitude, filling up the entire Hill sphere (cf. the panel e of Figure 1). The grey, pink, and blue regions in Figure 2 illustrate
iron, rock and H/He mass fractions as functions of planets
radius. The mass of the three components enclosed within
a given spherical radius is overplotted with red (rock), black
(iron), and blue (H/He) dashed lines, respectively.
When the intruding planet enters the targets envelope, a
velocity shear is present at the interface between two species
which triggers Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instabilities. On the
other hand, during the propagation of the impact-induced
shock wave through the target, a denser fluid is accelerated
by a less dense one at their interface and Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities start to develop. However, since the impactor
merges with the target in less than half an hour, only smallscale instabilities arise during such a short time span (see e.g.
Agertz et al. 2007), which can only be resolved with an extremely high resolution. Figure 3 shows a cutaway view of
a snapshot when the impactor is about to merge with the target. We plot the partial density, i.e. the density times the mass
fraction of the dominant species of a grid cell, to illustrate
the interior structure. We note that only a little mixing occurs when targets gaseous envelope gets crushed to its rocky
layer, reducing the density of rocky material in a narrow region between the target and the impactor (see Figure 3). As
during the short impact phase, both K-H and R-T instabilities
are unable to cause large scale mixing, we identify that the
impact-driven turbulence is responsible for the global mixing
observed during the late stages (see Figure 4). Because a large
amount of kinetic energy is released upon the coalescence of
the target and the impactor, fluid motions become turbulent
and a complex mixture of K-H and R-T instabilities can be
triggered. The turbulent mixing as well as hydrodynamic instabilities destroy the original layered interior structure of the
target causing radial mixing between iron and rock near the
center and inducing a fraction of rock (and a much smaller
fraction of iron) to diffuse into the H/He atmosphere (see Figure 4). Nevertheless, figure 2 shows that more than two thirds
of the mass at the center still consists of iron species. Besides,
the iron mass fraction falls off rapidly with radius, indicating
that the planetary core survives from the impact and its mass

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

Mass fraction of heavy elements

0.6

109

Radius (cm)

10-2
1010

F IG . 5. Compositional gradients inside the target planets after head-on


collisions. The low-speed and high-speed impacts are represented by solid
and dashed lines respectively. Mass fractions of iron (black), rocky material
(red), and heavy elements (blue) as functions of the radius are shown with
labels on the right. The compositional gradient Z (green) increases with
radius in the low-speed case. The small value of Z at radii indicates that the
elements are well mixed and homogenized. Fluctuation in Z reflects that
the planet has not yet reached a relaxed state.

grows in a coalescence manner.


In contrast, the rocky material is dredged up to the top of the
atmosphere due to the turbulent motions driven by the impact.
As shown in Figure 5, we note that the targets interior, i.e.
within 6 109 cm, has a steep and positive compositional gradient, Z = d log Z/d log P, which serves to stabilize thermal
convection in the mantle. At least right after the giant impacts,
a head-on collision develops a hot and inhomogeneous interior. Heat transport deep inside a post-impact planet may be
suppressed by the effect of double diffusion convection (e.g.
Rosenblum et al. 2011; Leconte & Chabrier 2012). Such an
inefficient heat transfer mechanism would also prolong the
presence of a magma ocean and delay the differentiation of
iron material from a silicate-rich mantle. Off-axis collisions
would lead to more efficient mixing, but also, to less efficient
kinetic energy contribution.
We summarize the energy budget in Table 1. Note that the
planets internal energy is almost doubled after the impact and
it is larger than the sum of the internal and kinetic energies of

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.

come an extra heat source for the target interior. Assuming


that silicates in the H/He atmosphere establish a local thermal
equilibrium with the turbulent gas, they condense into grains
in cooler outer regions with r & 1010 cm. These silicate condensates grow through collisional coagulation (e.g. Podolak
2003). Relatively large silicate grains are expected to settle
toward the planetary surface and sublimate along the way.
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The results presented in the previous sections show the
planets structure immediately after head-on giant impacts.
Models 1 and 2 illustrate the possibility of diverse instantaneous outcomes depending on energy of collision, one at low
velocity and the other at approximately the local Keplerian velocity, three times the planets escape velocity. Whereas the

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.

highly-irradiated planet has an isothermal layer. We consider


that an inflated planet after an impact radiates away heat from
the photosphere. Owen & Wu (2015) estimated the KelvinHelmholtz timescale of a planet (3, 5, and 10 M ) with the
equilibrium temperature of 900 K as a function of planetary
radius in unit of the Bondi radius and envelope mass fraction
based on a stellar evolution code, i.e., MESA (Paxton et al.
2011). We applied their results of 5 and 10 M shown in Figure 2 in Owen & Wu (2015) to our targets after giant impacts
( 4.991 M and 9.738 M with the equilibrium temperature
of 900 K).
Following results of Owen & Wu (2015), we estimate the
timescale of the Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction to be 1 Myr
for the low-speed case and < 10 kyr for the high-speed one.
A protracted state of a hot and inflated atmosphere enhances
its mass loss via a Parker wind. Based on Eq.(16) in Owen &
Wu (2015), we estimate that the amount of mass loss for postimpact planets via a Parker wind for the two cases would be
88% and 80% of its envelope mass right after the impact.
As the planet cools down, silicate material sediments from
its atmosphere and contracts within its interior. The release of
gravitational energy provides a source of internal heat which
prolongs the inflationary state of the planets atmosphere and
enhances mass loss via a Parker wind. The extended planetary
atmosphere also intercepts a greater fraction of the stellar Xray and UV irradiation and increases the rate of mass loss
through photoevaporation.
We estimate the mass loss rate of an extended atmosphere
via stellar XUV irradiation after giant impacts. Adopting analytical descriptions of a XUV energy flux from solar-type
stars (Ribas et al. 2005), the incident XUV luminosity at the
Hill radius is 1.0107 L and 1.5107 L in the low-speed
and high-speed model, respectively. Given that the conversion
efficiency from XUV photons to the kinetic energy of bulk atmospheric outflow is 10% as a fiducial value (Yelle 2004), the
mass loss rate from the Roche lobe via stellar XUV irradiation right after giant impacts is estimated to be 3 M Myr1
for the former and 2 M Myr1 for the latter. If we consider
a typical decay timescale of a XUV flux for Sun-like stars is
0.1Gyr, the planet in the low-speed model may lose the entire envelope because its atmosphere shrinks in a few Myr. On
the other hands, the planet in the high-speed model can contract more quickly (< 10 kyr), but it is unlikely for its tenuous
post-impact atmosphere to survive a subsequent mass loss via

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.

NAOC, Cray XC30 at NAOJ and the Hyades cluster at UCSC.


The FLASH code used in this work was in part developed by
the DOE NNSA-ASC OASCR Flash Center at the University

of Chicago. VisIt is supported by the Department of Energy


with funding from the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program and the Scientific Discovery through Advanced
Computing Program.

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