Paper detail

Mixing and Transport of Short-Lived and Stable Isotopes and Refractory Grains in Protoplanetary Disks

Analyses of primitive meteorites and cometary samples have shown that the solar nebula must have experienced a phase of large-scale outward transport of small refractory grains as well as homogenization of initially spatially heterogeneous short-lived isotopes. The stable oxygen isotopes, however, were able to remain spatially heterogenous at the $\sim$ 6% level. One promising mechanism for achieving these disparate goals is the mixing and transport associated with a marginally gravitationally unstable (MGU) disk, a likely cause of FU Orionis events in young low-mass stars. Several new sets of MGU models are presented that explore mixing and transport in disks with varied masses (0.016 to 0.13 $M_\odot$) around stars with varied masses (0.1 to 1 $M_\odot$) and varied initial $Q$ stability minima (1.8 to 3.1). The results show that MGU disks are able to rapidly (within $\sim 10^4$ yr) achieve large-scale transport and homogenization of initially spatially heterogeneous distributions of disk grains or gas. In addition, the models show that while single-shot injection heterogeneity is reduced to a relatively low level ($\sim$ 1%), as required for early solar system chronometry, continuous injection of the sort associated with the generation of stable oxygen isotope fractionations by UV photolysis leads to a sustained, relatively high level ($\sim$ 10%) of heterogeneity, in agreement with the oxygen isotope data. These models support the suggestion that the protosun may have experienced at least one FU Orionis-like outburst, which produced several of the signatures left behind in primitive chondrites and comets.