From planetesimals to planets with N-body simulations in the giant-planet formation region

Center for Star and Planet Formation, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark

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Received: 5 December 2025
Accepted: 30 January 2026

Abstract

The cores of wide-orbit giant planets can form via pebble accretion if large planetesimals form in the outer regions of protoplanetary discs at sufficiently early times. Streaming instability simulations support mass distributions consistent with Solar System minor body constraints, but when and where planetesimal formation took place remains uncertain. Here, we report on our N-body simulations of core formation through pebble and planetesimal accretion starting from streaming-instability inspired planetesimal mass distributions. We explore two initial radial planetesimal distributions, a ring-like and a spatially more uniform distribution, between 10 and 50 AU. To address the numerical challenge of simulating realistic planetesimal numbers, corresponding to one to ten Earth masses of planetesimals, we made use of GPU acceleration for the N-body interactions (with GENGA) and a newly developed pebble accretion module. We find that the top of the planetesimal mass distribution provides the seeds for core formation through pebble accretion, leading to the formation of multiple giant planets. This is consistent with previous studies not including N-body interactions. Planetesimal surface densities, crudely corresponding to an initial 10% formation efficiency, imply low mean collision rates (around unity) in the gas disc phase. Our simulations show that giant planet formation depends only weakly on the initial locations where planetesimals form, because of rapid dynamical scattering, and on their total mass budget, due to filtering of the pebble flux between embryos. After disc dissipation, giant planet systems stir the remnant primordial planetesimals, making a scattered disc an inherent outcome of giant planet formation. Giant impacts between planetary cores generally appear to be rare in the first 100Myr.