Migration of Gas Giant Planets in Gravitationally Unstable Disks

Abstract

Characterization of migration in gravitationally unstable disks is necessary to understand the fate of protoplanets formed by disk instability. As part of a larger study, we are using a 3D radiative hydrodynamics code to investigate how an embedded gas giant planet interacts with a gas disk that undergoes gravitational instabilities (GIs). This Letter presents preliminary results from simulations with a Jupiter-mass planet placed in orbit at 25 AU within a 0.14 M_sun disk. The disk spans 5 to 40 AU around a 1 M_sun star and is initially close to marginal stability. In one simulation, the planet is inserted prior to the eruption of GIs; in another, it is inserted only after the disk has settled into a quasi-steady GI-active state, where heating by GIs roughly balances radiative cooling. When the planet is present from the beginning, its own wake stimulates growth of a particular global mode with which it strongly interacts, and the planet plunges inward six AU in about 1000 years. In both cases with embedded planets, there are times when the planet's radial motion is slow and varies in direction. At other times, when the planet appears to be interacting with strong spiral modes, migration both inward and outward can be relatively rapid, covering several AUs over hundreds of years. Migration in both cases appears to stall near the inner Lindblad resonance of a dominant low-order mode. Planet orbit eccentricities fluctuate rapidly between about 0.02 to 0.1 throughout the GI-active phases of the simulations.