Migration and Growth of Protoplanetary Embryos. II. Emergence of Proto-Gas-Giant Cores versus Super Earth Progenitors

Nearly 15%-20% of solar type stars contain one or more gas giant planets. According to the core-accretion scenario, the acquisition of their gaseous envelope must be preceded by the formation of super-critical cores with masses 10 times or larger than that of the Earth. It is natural to link the formation probability of gas giant planets with the supply of gases and solids in their natal disks. However, a much richer population of super Earths suggests that (1) there is no shortage of planetary building block material, (2) a gas giant's growth barrier is probably associated with whether it can merge into super-critical cores, and (3) super Earths are probably failed cores that did not attain sufficient mass to initiate efficient accretion of gas before it is severely depleted. Here we construct a model based on the hypothesis that protoplanetary embryos migrated extensively before they were assembled into bona fide planets. We construct a Hermite-Embryo code based on a unified viscous-irradiation disk model and a prescription for the embryo-disk tidal interaction. This code is used to simulate the convergent migration of embryos, and their close encounters and coagulation. Around the progenitors of solar-type stars, the progenitor super-critical-mass cores of gas giant planets primarily form in protostellar disks with relatively high (gsim 10^-7 M _⊙ yr^-1) mass accretion rates, whereas systems of super Earths (failed cores) are more likely to emerge out of natal disks with modest mass accretion rates, due to the mean motion resonance barrier and retention efficiency.