We quantify the utility of large radial velocity surveys for constraining
theoretical models of Type II migration and protoplanetary disk physics. We
describe a theoretical model for the expected radial distribution of extrasolar
planets that combines an analytic description of migration with an empirically
calibrated disk model. The disk model includes viscous evolution and mass loss
via photoevaporation. Comparing the predicted distribution to a uniformly
selected subsample of planets from the Lick / Keck / AAT planet search
programs, we find that a simple model in which planets form in the outer disk
at a uniform rate, migrate inward according to a standard Type II prescription,
and become stranded when the gas disk is dispersed, is consistent with the
radial distribution of planets for orbital radii 0.1 AU < a < 2.5 AU and planet
masses greater than 1.65 Jupiter masses. Some variant models are disfavored by
existing data, but the significance is limited (~95%) due to the small sample
of planets suitable for statistical analysis. We show that the favored model
predicts that the planetary mass function should be almost independent of
orbital radius at distances where migration dominates the massive planet
population. We also study how the radial distribution of planets depends upon
the adopted disk model. We find that the distribution can constrain not only
changes in the power-law index of the disk viscosity, but also sharp jumps in
the efficiency of angular momentum transport that might occur at small radii.Comment: ApJ, in press. References updated to match published versio