EART 290Q – PHYSICS OF PLANET FORMATION

Winter 2011 Class Notes

Email Prof. Nimmo (fnimmo@es.ucsc.edu) if you have problems accessing the files below

Timing/Location: Tu/Thurs from 10:00 to 11:45 in E&MS D236 (and occasionally Friday 2-3:30 in D250)

Course Goals: To provide a quantitative, graduate-level investigation of the physical processes controlling the formation of planets and satellites in this (and other) solar systems.

Texts:  Most of the course will consist of close reading of journal articles, but Lissauer and DePater Planetary Sciences (2^nd ed.) will be used heavily, and some use may be made of Murray and Dermott Solar System Dynamics.

(Approximate) Course Outline

          Week 1 (4 Jan): Overview, gravity & orbits. Notes.

Excerpts from L&DP, Chapter 2

                   A good overview, J.E. Chambers, Planet Formation, Treatise Geochem. Vol. 1, pp.461-475, 2005.

Problem Set #1

Week 2 (11 Jan): Disks and migration. Notes.

Lecture on Fri, 2-3:30 in D250 instead of Tuesday

Order-of-magnitude scalings, in D.J. Stevenson, Formation and early evolution of the Earth, in Mantle convection, ed. W.R. Peltier, Gordon & Breach, pp. 817-873, 1989.

                   An excellent one-page summary by A.P. Boss, Temperatures in protoplanetary disks, Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 26, 53-80, 1998.

Section 4 of Hartmann et al., Ap. J. 495, 385-400, 1998 is useful.

Problem Set #2

          Week 3 (18 Jan): Condensation and chemistry. Notes

Lecture on Fri, 2-3:30 in D250 instead of Tuesday

P. Cassen, Models for the fractionation of moderately volatile elements in the solar nebula, Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 31, 793-806, 1996.

Alexander et al. (2001) provide a good overview, and Drake & Righter  (2002) are good on silicate bodies.

Problem Set #3

          Week 4 (25 Jan): Solid body accretion. Notes

Chambers has an outstanding summary in a currently unpublished chapter.

Problem Set #4

          Week 5 (1 Feb): Obliquity and precession. Notes

A useful set of powerpoint slides courtesy of Bruce Bills

          Week 6 (8 Feb): Effects of impacts. Notes.

Stevenson again is an excellent order-of-magnitude summary.

Rubie et al. is lengthier but has useful introductory material.

Problem Set #5

          Week 7 (15 Feb): Clocks. Notes.

Russell et al. provide a good discussion of both isotopic and astrophysical constraints.

Kleine et al. tell you more than you can possibly want to know about the Hf-W system

Problem Set#6

          Week 8 (22 Feb): Gas giant accretion. Notes.

Another Stevenson article provides an excellent discussion.

          Week 9 (1 Mar): Satellite accretion

Canup and Ward (2002)

          Week 10 (8 Mar): No lectures - LPSC