Paper detail

Dust processing in protoplanetary envelopes as the origin of hot minerals in comets

Crystalline silicates are found in a large number of comets. These pose a long-standing conundrum for solar system formation models as they can only be created in the inner hot disk at temperatures higher than 800 K, and there is no obvious mechanism to transport them out into the comets formation region. Here we propose that these particles could have formed inside the hydrostatic envelopes surrounding young protoplanets still embedded in the protoplanetary disk. Using a simplified 1D model we investigate the thermal structure of these envelopes, and find that for core masses ranging from 0.08 to 1.5 M_Earth, located anywhere between 1 and 30 AU, the temperature and pressure at the base of the envelopes are high enough to quickly vaporize silicate particles of various sizes. Moreover, if the grain abundance is at least solar, these envelopes become fully convective, allowing for dust ejection across the Bondi radius back into the disk. Amorphous silicates are hence thermally processed into crystalline particles in these envelopes, and then transported back to disk through convective diffusion to be finally incorporated into the cometary building blocks.