![Final semi-major axes and masses for all objects produced in simulations with regular disks. The left panel shows objects produced in disks with low C/O ratios and the right one shows planets in high C/O ratio disks. The dash-dotted line shows the initial mass of planestesimals in our simulations while the dotted line shows the initial mass of planetary embryos. We consider planets to be anything at or above the initial embryo mass, fragments to be anything below the initial planetesimal mass, and planetesimals to be any object at or above the initial planetesimal mass but below the initial embryo mass. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Correlations.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.EP] Studies suggest that protoplanetary disks around stars with high carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratios can produce terrestrial planets with carbon-dominated compositions instead of silicon-dominated ones.
While previous work studied the evolution of these disks and the planets that form within them, none analyze in detail how the differences in the surface density profiles of these disks could affect the architectures and iron and siderophile contents of exoplanetary systems.
Here, we present a new study that uses the N-body integrator REBOUND and data from a sequential dust condensation model to simulate the formation of planets in systems with varying C/O ratios.
We find that bulk density could be used to distinguish between silicon-rich and carbon-rich planets, though it may not be a reliable metric on its own.
Noah Ferich, Robert Royer III, Cody Shakespeare, Jason H. Steffen
Comments: 14 pages, 11 figures, 9 Tables, Submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) Cite as: arXiv:2610.00813 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2610.00813v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.00813
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Submission history
From: Noah Ferich
[v1] Wed, 30 Sep 2026 23:15:05 UTC (257 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00813
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, exoplanet,
