The formation of planetary cores: a numerical approach
Résumé
We study the formation of the embryos of terrestrial planets and their final separation using a numerical integration of Hill's equations for a large number of particles. We find that the final eccentricity dispersion approaches Safronov's law as in the case of spatially homogeneous systems and we give the mean separation of the final cores for the planar case. We confirm that at the end of the accretion process, the separation between the cores is independent of the initial conditions namely the mass spectrum and the velocity dispersion. We also find that planetary embryos do not form necessarily at the maxima of the system density and that no global runaway occurs during the formation of planets.