Young Planets around Young Accreting Stars: II. Circumplanetary Disk Formation and Accretion
Abstract
We present global 3-D ideal-MHD simulations of young giant planets in a protoplanetary disk (PPD) undergoing magnetospheric accretion onto its host star. Extending our previous work, we insert three planets with planet-to-star mass ratio q = 0.01 (∼ 10 Jupiter masses) at 0.45, 0.9, and 1.8 times the magnetospheric truncation radius, RT , thereby probing the low-density cavity, disk-cavity boundary, and turbulent inner disk. The outermost two planets develop circumplanetary disks (CPDs), whereas the innermost planet forms no persistent bound structure because its high velocity relative to the magnetosphere reduces the effective Bondi radius below the planet's size. The outermost planet forms a stable, coplanar CPD whose inner region is rotationally supported and rotates at nearly the local Keplerian speed within ∼ 0.25 Hill radii. High-latitude inflow and midplane decretion produce meridional circulation and continuous recycling between the CPD and surrounding disk. Inflow through the Hill sphere is comparable to previous Hill-based hydrodynamic estimates. The middle planet, located near RT, develops a persistent polar CPD whose angular-momentum vector is parallel to the disk midplane, demonstrating that coherent circumplanetary structures can form within highly dynamic magnetospheric flows. Based on both the effective Bondi radius and thermal-mass criterion, we identify conditions under which massive giant planets form CPDs in the inner disk. Estimated planetary inflow accretion rates imply mass-doubling timescales ≳ 10 Myr due to the low disk surface density, suggesting that, in the magnetically active zone, these planets undergo only limited late-stage growth before disk dispersal.
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BibTeX
@misc{soto2026young,
title = {{Young Planets around Young Accreting Stars: II. Circumplanetary Disk Formation and Accretion}},
author = {Arturo Cevallos Soto and Zhaohuan Zhu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.38097},
eprint = {2610.38097},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38097},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Young Planets around Young Accreting Stars: II. Circumplanetary Disk Formation and Accretion
AU - Arturo Cevallos Soto
AU - Zhaohuan Zhu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.38097
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38097
AB - We present global 3-D ideal-MHD simulations of young giant planets in a protoplanetary disk (PPD) undergoing magnetospheric accretion onto its host star. Extending our previous work, we insert three planets with planet-to-star mass ratio q = 0.01 (∼ 10 Jupiter masses) at 0.45, 0.9, and 1.8 times the magnetospheric truncation radius, R_T , thereby probing the low-density cavity, disk-cavity boundary, and turbulent inner disk. The outermost two planets develop circumplanetary disks (CPDs), whereas the innermost planet forms no persistent bound structure because its high velocity relative to the magnetosphere reduces the effective Bondi radius below the planet's size. The outermost planet forms a stable, coplanar CPD whose inner region is rotationally supported and rotates at nearly the local Keplerian speed within ∼ 0.25 Hill radii. High-latitude inflow and midplane decretion produce meridional circulation and continuous recycling between the CPD and surrounding disk. Inflow through the Hill sphere is comparable to previous Hill-based hydrodynamic estimates. The middle planet, located near R_T, develops a persistent polar CPD whose angular-momentum vector is parallel to the disk midplane, demonstrating that coherent circumplanetary structures can form within highly dynamic magnetospheric flows. Based on both the effective Bondi radius and thermal-mass criterion, we identify conditions under which massive giant planets form CPDs in the inner disk. Estimated planetary inflow accretion rates imply mass-doubling timescales ≳ 10 Myr due to the low disk surface density, suggesting that, in the magnetically active zone, these planets undergo only limited late-stage growth before disk dispersal.
ER -