Feeding the Circumplanetary Disk: 3D Simulations of Dust Filtration and Accretion in PDS 70 c
Abstract
How circumplanetary disks (CPDs) capture and retain solids is central to constraining the timescale for formation of rocky satellites and interpreting submillimeter continuum observations around giant planets. Here, we investigate the transport of gas and dust from the circumstellar disk into the CPD, using PDS 70 as our fiducial example. Based on observation-driven parameters, we perform high-resolution 3D adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamic simulations including a multifluid dust component to study dust accretion onto planets with masses of 1 MJ and 2.5 MJ. We find that the pressure maximum at the gap edge imposes strong, size-dependent dust filtration, drastically lowering the solid content of the accreting flow. The net dust-to-gas mass ratio of the material accreting onto the planet is reduced by roughly two orders of magnitude relative to the outer disk. Only small grains (≲ 61 μm for the 1 MJ case and ≲ 10 μm for the 2.5 MJ case) are able to accrete efficiently onto the CPD. Despite this filtering, we show that a continuous inflow of small grains can still deliver sufficient mass to build the observed PDS 70 c CPD or a Galilean-like satellite system within a few million years. Because more massive planets more effectively prevent the accretion of large grains, the dust that reaches the CPD is dominated by small particles with low millimeter-wave opacities. Consequently, in the absence of grain growth, interpreting millimeter continuum measurements of CPDs around massive giant planets may require invoking larger total dust masses than typically assumed.
Related
- Young Planets around Young Accreting Stars: II. Circumplanetary Disk Formation and Accretion
- 3D simulations of magnetospheric accretion in T Tauri stars I. Disk truncation, stellar torques, and application to observations
- The long-term evolution of a black hole accretion torus: a comparison between GRMHD simulations and relativistic thin disk theory
- Scaled three-dimensional simulations of giant-planet accretion and disk clearing
- 3D simulations of magnetospheric accretion in T Tauri stars: I. Disk truncation, stellar torques, and application to observations
BibTeX
@misc{gardner2026feeding,
title = {{Feeding the Circumplanetary Disk: 3D Simulations of Dust Filtration and Accretion in PDS 70 c}},
author = {Charles H. Gardner and Andrea Isella and Hui Li and Shengtai Li and Gennaro D'Angelo and Adam M. Dempsey},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.24898},
eprint = {2609.24898},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24898},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Feeding the Circumplanetary Disk: 3D Simulations of Dust Filtration and Accretion in PDS 70 c
AU - Charles H. Gardner
AU - Andrea Isella
AU - Hui Li
AU - Shengtai Li
AU - Gennaro D'Angelo
AU - Adam M. Dempsey
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.24898
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24898
AB - How circumplanetary disks (CPDs) capture and retain solids is central to constraining the timescale for formation of rocky satellites and interpreting submillimeter continuum observations around giant planets. Here, we investigate the transport of gas and dust from the circumstellar disk into the CPD, using PDS 70 as our fiducial example. Based on observation-driven parameters, we perform high-resolution 3D adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamic simulations including a multifluid dust component to study dust accretion onto planets with masses of 1 M_J and 2.5 M_J. We find that the pressure maximum at the gap edge imposes strong, size-dependent dust filtration, drastically lowering the solid content of the accreting flow. The net dust-to-gas mass ratio of the material accreting onto the planet is reduced by roughly two orders of magnitude relative to the outer disk. Only small grains (≲ 61 μm for the 1 M_J case and ≲ 10 μm for the 2.5 M_J case) are able to accrete efficiently onto the CPD. Despite this filtering, we show that a continuous inflow of small grains can still deliver sufficient mass to build the observed PDS 70 c CPD or a Galilean-like satellite system within a few million years. Because more massive planets more effectively prevent the accretion of large grains, the dust that reaches the CPD is dominated by small particles with low millimeter-wave opacities. Consequently, in the absence of grain growth, interpreting millimeter continuum measurements of CPDs around massive giant planets may require invoking larger total dust masses than typically assumed.
ER -