2003MNRAS.346L..36R

Self-gravitating protostellar discs are unstable to fragmentation if the gas can cool on a time-scale that is short compared with the orbital period. We use a combination of hydrodynamic simulations and N -body orbit integrations to study the long-term evolution of a fragmenting disc with an initial mass ratio to the star of M_disc/M_*0.1. For a disc that is initially unstable across a range of radii, a combination of collapse and subsequent accretion yields substellar objects with a spectrum of masses extending (for a Solar-mass star) up to ~0.01 M_☉. Subsequent gravitational evolution ejects most of the lower mass objects within a few million years, leaving a small number of very massive planets or brown dwarfs in eccentric orbits at moderately small radii. Based on these results, systems such as HD 168443 - in which the companions are close to or beyond the deuterium burning limit - appear to be the best candidates to have formed via gravitational instability. If massive substellar companions originate from disc fragmentation, while lower-mass planetary companions originate from core accretion, the metallicity distribution of stars which host massive substellar companions at radii of ∼1 au should differ from that of stars with lower mass planetary companions.