Past exam of the short options paper shared by Prelims and Parts A and B of the physics course of the University of Oxford / 2018 / S29 / 3 / Solution

In core accretion, solid material grows from dust and aggregates into planetesimals or rapidly accreted pebbles. A sufficiently large core binds an atmosphere; beyond the snow line, additional condensed volatiles aid solid growth. Cooling allows the envelope to contract and acquire more gas. Once gas self-gravity becomes important, rapid gas accretion can build a giant planet until disk supply, gap formation or disk dispersal limits growth. Migration and interactions with other bodies can alter its final orbit.

Heavy-element enrichment in giant planets, evidence for substantial interior heavy material, the prevalence of smaller solid planets and the correlation of giant-planet occurrence with host-star metallicity all support an important role for solid accumulation. They do not uniquely establish one growth pathway. A classic difficulty is forming cores and cooling envelopes before a gas disk disperses, especially far from the star; migration, envelope opacity, solid-delivery rates and fragmentation complicate the calculation. Pebble-assisted growth can change the timescale, and disk gravitational instability remains a distinct possible route in some environments.

Planetary luminosity is the total emitted power. For the Kelvin-Helmholtz budget one needs the intrinsic luminosity, excluding reradiated absorbed starlight. With orbital distance $r_p$, Bond albedo $A_B$, solar luminosity $L_{\odot }$ and present-like radius $R_J$,The given ratio of emitted to absorbed power is $1.67$, so $L_{\mathrm{int}}=0.67P_{\mathrm{abs}}$. Using the supplied radius, $r_p=5.2$ AU and a solar luminosity around $3.8\times 10^{26}$ W givesconsistent with the quoted $3.42\times 10^{17}$ W. Taking $1.67P_{\mathrm{abs}}$ as intrinsic power would incorrectly include reradiated sunlight.

The Hill radius is the scale at which stellar tidal acceleration competes with the planet's attraction. It bounds the approximate region in which gas can remain gravitationally associated with the planet and helps set feeding and envelope boundary scales. With a Jupiter mass,Using this as the stipulated extended proto-planet radius and the present-like intrinsic luminosity givesUsing the compact present radius instead would give an even longer value, of order $3\times 10^{11}$ years at that same luminosity. Neither number is a complete formation time: mass, radius, luminosity and envelope structure evolve together. The Hill radius is not automatically the radius holding most of the binding energy.

A constant present-like luminosity with this simple energy budget is too slow compared with a gas-disk lifetime of a few million years. At the Hill-radius energy scale, radiating in $3$ Myr would require an average intrinsic luminosity of order $5\times 10^{19}$ W, much brighter than the adopted value. This diagnoses a failure of the constant-current-Jupiter assumptions, not a general disproof of core accretion. Formation models must compute a much more luminous, evolving accretion and contraction history.