Dynamical Shake-up of Planetary Systems. II. N-Body Simulations of Solar System Terrestrial Planet Formation Induced by Secular Resonance Sweeping

We revisit the “dynamical shake-up” model of solar system terrestrial planet formation, wherein the whole process is driven by the sweeping of Jupiter’s secular resonance as the gas disk is removed. Using a large number of 0.5 Gyr long N-body simulations, we investigate the different outcomes produced by such a scenario. We confirm that in contrast to existing models, secular resonance sweeping combined with tidal damping by the disk gas can reproduce the low eccentricities and inclinations and high radial mass concentration of the solar system terrestrial planets. At the same time, this also drives the final assemblage of the planets on a timescale of several tens of millions of years, an order of magnitude faster than inferred from previous numerical simulations which neglected these effects, but possibly in better agreement with timescales inferred from cosmochemical data. In addition, we find that significant delivery of water-rich material from the outer asteroid belt is a natural byproduct.