^1,2André Izidoro, ¹Alessandro Morbidelli, ³Sean. N. Raymond
¹University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Laboratoire Lagrange, BP 4229, F-06304 Nice Cedex 4, France
²Capes Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil, Brasília/DF 70040-020, Brazil
³CNRS and Université de Bordeaux, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, UMR 5804, F-33270 Floirac, France

Super-Earths with orbital periods less than 100 days are extremely abundant around Sun-like stars. It is unlikely that these planets formed at their current locations. Rather, they likely formed at large distances from the star and subsequently migrated inward. Here we use N-body simulations to study the effect of super-Earths on the accretion of rocky planets. In our simulations, one or more super-Earths migrate inward through a disk of planetary embryos and planetesimals embedded in a gaseous disk. We tested a wide range of migration speeds and configurations. Fast-migrating super-Earths (τmig ~ 0.01-0.1 Myr) only have a modest effect on the protoplanetary embryos and planetesimals. Sufficient material survives to form rocky, Earth-like planets on orbits exterior to the super-Earths’. In contrast, slowly migrating super-Earths shepherd rocky material interior to their orbits and strongly deplete the terrestrial planet-forming zone. In this situation any Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone are extremely volatile-rich and are therefore probably not Earth-like.

Reference
Izidoro A, Morbidelli A, Raymond SN (2014) Terrestrial Planet Formation in the Presence of Migrating Super-Earths. The Astrophysical Journal 794/1
Link to Article [doi:10.1088/0004-637X/794/1/11]