Planet migration and disc destruction due to magneto-centrifugal stellar winds

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of magneto-centrifugally driven or simply magnetic winds of rapidly rotating, strongly magnetized T Tauri stars in causing the inward or outward migration of close-in giant planets. The azimuthal ram pressure of the magnetized wind acting on the planet tends to increase the planet's angular momentum and cause outward migration if the star's rotation period P* is less than the planet's orbital period P p. In the opposite case, P* > Pp, the planet migrates inward. Thus, planets orbiting at distances larger (smaller) than 0.06 au (P*/5 d)2/3 tend to be pushed outward (inward), where P* is the rotation period of the star assumed to have the mass of the Sun. The magnetic winds are likely to occur in T Tauri stars where the thermal speed of the gas close to the star is small, where the star's magnetic field is strong, and where the star rotates rapidly. The time-scale for appreciable radial motion of the planet is estimated as ∼2-20 Myr. A sufficiently massive close-in planet may cause tidal locking and once this happens the radial migration due to the magnetic wind ceases. The magnetic winds are expected to be important for planet migration for the case of a multipolar magnetic field rather than a dipole field where the wind is directed away from the equatorial plane and where a magnetospheric cavity forms. The influence of the magnetic wind in eroding and eventually destroying the accretion disc is analysed. A momentum integral is derived for the turbulent wind/disc boundary layer and this is used to estimate the disc erosion time-scale as ∼1-102 Myr, with the lower value favoured. © 2008 RAS.