Can chondrules be produced by the interaction of Jupiter with the protosolar disk?

Chondrules are crystallised droplets of silicates formed by rapid heating to high temperatures (> 1800 K) of solid precursors followed by hours or days of cooling. Dating of chondrules is consistent with the formation timescale of Jupiter in the core-accretion model (1-4 Myrs). Here we investigate if the shocks generated by a massive planet could generate flash heating episodes necessary to form chondrules using high resolution 2D simulations with the multi-fluid code ROSSBI. We use different radiative cooling prescriptions, i.e. different cooling rates and models, and vary planet mass, orbit and disk models. For long disk cooling rates (> 1000 orbits) and a massive protoplanet (> 0.75 jupiter masses), we obtain hot enough temperatures for chondrule formation, while using more realistic thermodynamics is not successful in the Minimum Mass Solar Nebula (MMSN) model. However, sufficient flash heating is achieved by a Jupiter mass planet in a 5 times more massive disk, which is a conceivable scenario for the young solar nebula and exoplanetary systems. Interestingly, a gap-forming massive planet triggers vortices, which can trap dust, i.e. chondrule precursors, and generates a high pressure environment that is consistent with cosmochemical evidence from chondrules. A massive gas giant can thus, in principle, both stimulate the concentration of chondrule precursors in the vicinity of the shocking regions, and flash-heat them via the shocks.
12 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to ApJ