[Baps] Morbidelli CfA colloquium January 24

[Sarah Stewart-Mukhopadhyay]

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/events/colloquia/

 "Crucial Dynamical Phases in Solar System Formation"

             Alessandro Morbidelli
         Observatory of Nice (France)

         Thursday January 24, 2008
                4:00 p.m.
             (tea at 3:30)

           Philips Auditorium
 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
           60 Garden Street, Cambridge

Abstract: The formation and evolution of the giant planets of our Solar
System presents several problems: the cores of the planets should have
been driven into the Sun by Type I migration, faster than they could
accrete their massive gaseous atmosphere; once formed, Jupiter and Saturn
should have suffered Type-II migration towards the Sun, becoming hot or
warm giants, like most of the extra-solar planets known so far; the
planets most likely underwent a late reorganization of their orbital
architecture, as indicated by the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) of the
Moon, which suggests that a massive reservoir of small bodies suddenly
became unstable. Without pretension of providing any definitive answer, I
will present a scenario of the formation and evolution of the giant
planets that addresses these problems. More specifically I will present
simulations of the dynamics of planetary cores in the vicinity of a
"planet trap," which can exist at the transition between the active and
the dead zones of the disk. I will illustrate how the dynamics of the
fully formed planets in the gas disk leads to one of 6 possible mutual
configurations, that are stable and avoid significant migration towards
the Sun. Finally I will describe our model for the origin of the LHB and
how it connects with some of these mutual stable configurations.
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