Formation and evolution of a protoplanetary disk: Combining observations, simulations, and cosmochemical constraints
Authors: Morbidelli Alessandro , Marrocchi Yves , Ali Ahmad Adnan , Bhandare Asmita , Charnoz Sébastien , Commerçon Benoît , Dullemond Cornelis P. , Guillot Tristan , Hennebelle Patrick , Lee Yueh-Ning , Lovascio Francesco , Marschall Raphael , Marty Bernard , Maury Anaëlle , Tamami Okamoto 
Published: September 2024

Context. The formation and evolution of protoplanetary disks remains elusive. We have numerous astronomical observations of young stellar objects of different ages with their envelopes and/or disks. Moreover, in the last decade, there has been tremendous progress in numerical simulations of star and disk formation. New simulations use realistic equations of state for the gas and treat the interaction of matter and the magnetic field with the full set of nonideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. However, it is still not fully clear how a disk forms and whether it happens from inside-out or outside-in. Open questions remain regarding where material is accreted onto the disk and comes from, how dust evolves in disks, and the timescales of appearance of disk’s structures. These unknowns limit our understanding of how planetesimals and planets form and evolve.

Aims. We attempted to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the protosolar disk, guided by the large amount of cosmochemical constraints derived from the study of meteorites, while using astronomical observations and numerical simulations as a guide to pinpointing plausible scenarios.

Methods. Our approach is highly interdisciplinary and we do not present new observations or simulations in this work. Instead, we combine, in an original manner, a large number of published results concerning young stellar objects observations, and numerical simulations, along with the chemical, isotopic and petrological nature of meteorites.

Results. We have achieved a plausible and coherent view of the evolution of the protosolar disk that is consistent with cosmochemical constraints and compatible with observations of other protoplanetary disks and sophisticated numerical simulations. The evidence that high-temperature condensates, namely, calcium-aluminum inclusions (CAIs) and amoeboid olivine aggregates (AOAs), formed near the protosun before being transported to the outer disk can be explained in two ways: there could have either been an early phase of vigorous radial spreading of the disk that occurred or fast transport of these condensates from the vicinity of the protosun toward large disk radii via the protostellar outflow. The assumption that the material accreted toward the end of the infall phase was isotopically distinct allows us to explain the observed dichotomy in nucleosynthetic isotopic anomalies of meteorites. It leads us toward intriguing predictions on the possible isotopic composition of refractory elements in comets. At a later time, when the infall of material waned, the disk started to evolve as an accretion disk. Initially, dust drifted inward, shrinking the radius of the dust component to ∼45 au, probably about to about half of the width of the gas component. Next, structures must have emerged, producing a series of pressure maxima in the disk, which trapped the dust on Myr timescales. This allowed planetesimals to form at radically distinct times without significantly changing any of the isotopic properties. We also conclude that there was no late accretion of material onto the disk via streamers. The disk disappeared at about 5 My, as indicated by paleomagnetic data in meteorites.

Conclusions. The evolution of the protosolar disk seems to have been quite typical in terms of size, lifetime, and dust behavior. This suggests that the peculiarities of the Solar System with respect to extrasolar planetary systems probably originate from the chaotic nature of planet formation and not from the properties of the parental disk itself.