CHONDRULE FORMATION VIA IMPACT JETTING TRIGGERED BY PLANETARY ACCRETION

Chondrules are one of the most primitive elements that can serve as a fundamental clue to the origin of our solar system. We investigate a formation scenario of chondrules that involves planetesimal collisions and the resultant impact jetting. Planetesimal collisions are the main agent to regulate planetary accretion that leads to the formation of terrestrial planets and cores of gas giants. The key component of this scenario is that ejected materials can melt when the impact velocity between colliding planetesimals exceeds about 2.5 km s−1. Previous simulations have shown that the process is efficient enough to reproduce the primordial abundance of chondrules. We examine this scenario carefully by performing semi-analytical calculations that are developed based on the results of direct N-body simulations. As found in the previous work, we confirm that planetesimal collisions that occur during planetary accretion can play an important role in forming chondrules. This arises because protoplanet–planetesimal collisions can achieve an impact velocity of about 2.5 km s−1 or higher, as protoplanets approach the isolation mass (Mp,iso). Assuming that the ejected mass is a fraction (Fch) of the colliding planetesimals’ mass, we show that the resultant abundance of chondrules is expressed well by FchMp,iso, as long as the formation of protoplanets is completed within a given disk lifetime. We perform a parameter study and examine how the abundance of chondrules and the timing of their formation change. We find that the impact jetting scenario generally works reasonably well for a certain range of parameters, while more dedicated work would be needed to include other physical processes that are neglected in this work and to examine their effects on chondrule formation.