How dust fragmentation may be beneficial to planetary growth by pebble accretion

Abstract

Context. Pebble accretion is an emerging paradigm for the fast growth of planetary cores. Pebble flux and pebble sizes are the key parameters used in the pebble accretion models. Aims. We aim to derive the pebble sizes and fluxes from state-of-the-art dust coagulation models and to understand their dependence on disk parameters and the fragmentation threshold velocity, and the impact of those on planetary growth by pebble accretion. Methods. We used a 1D dust evolution model including dust growth and fragmentation to calculate realistic pebble sizes and mass flux. We used this information to integrate the growth of planetary embryos placed at various locations in the protoplanetary disk. Results. Pebble flux strongly depends on disk properties including size and turbulence level, as well as the dust aggregates’ fragmentation threshold. We find that dust fragmentation may be beneficial to planetary growth in multiple ways. First of all, it prevents the solids from growing to very large sizes, at which point the efficiency of pebble accretion drops. What is more, small pebbles are depleted at a lower rate, providing a long-lasting pebble flux. As the full coagulation models are computationally expensive, we provide a simple method of estimating pebble sizes and flux in any protoplanetary disk model without substructure and with any fragmentation threshold velocity.