An Analytical Model of Radial Dust Trapping in Protoplanetary Disks (original) (raw)

Dust distribution in protoplanetary disks

Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2005

We present the results of a three dimensional, locally isothermal, non-self-gravitating SPH code which models protoplanetary disks with two fluids: gas and dust. We ran simulations of a 1 M star surrounded by a 0.01 M disk comprising 99% gas and 1% dust in mass and extending from 0.5 to ∼300 AU. The grain size ranges from 10 −6 m to 10 m for the low resolution (∼25 000 SPH particles) simulations and from 10 −4 m to 10 cm for the high resolution (∼160 000 SPH particles) simulations. Dust grains are slowed down by the sub-Keplerian gas and lose angular momentum, forcing them to migrate towards the central star and settle to the midplane. The gas drag efficiency varies according to the grain size, with the larger bodies being weakly influenced and following marginally perturbed Keplerian orbits, while smaller grains are strongly coupled to the gas. For intermediate sized grains, the drag force decouples the dust and gas, allowing the dust to preferentially migrate radially and efficiently settle to the midplane. The resulting dust distributions for each grain size will indicate, when grain growth is added, the regions when planets are likely to form.

Dust evolution in protoplanetary disks

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2007

We investigate the behaviour of dust in protoplanetary disks under the action of gas drag using our 3D, two-fluid (gas+dust) SPH code. We present the evolution of the dust spatial distribution in global simulations of planetless disks as well as of disks containing an already formed planet. The resulting dust structures vary strongly with particle size and planetary gaps are much sharper than in the gas phase, making them easier to detect with ALMA than anticipated. We also find that there is a range of masses where a planet can open a gap in the dust layer whereas it doesn't in the gas disk. Our dust distributions are fed to the radiative transfer code MCFOST to compute synthetic images, in order to derive constraints on the settling and growth of dust grains in observed disks.

Ring formation and dust dynamics in wind-driven protoplanetary discs: global simulations

Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020

Large-scale vertical magnetic fields are believed to play a key role in the evolution of protoplanetary discs. Associated with non-ideal effects, such as ambipolar diffusion, they are known to launch a wind that could drive accretion in the outer part of the disc (R > 1 AU). They also potentially lead to self-organisation of the disc into large-scale axisymmetric structures, similar to the rings recently imaged by sub-millimetre or near-infrared instruments (ALMA and SPHERE). The aim of this paper is to investigate the mechanism behind the formation of these gaseous rings, but also to understand the dust dynamics and its emission in discs threaded by a large-scale magnetic field. To this end, we performed global magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) axisymmetric simulations with ambipolar diffusion using a modified version of the PLUTO code. We explored different magnetisations with the midplane β parameter ranging from 105 to 103 and included dust grains -treated in the fluid approximati...

Dust evolution in protoplanetary disk

2018

In this work we analysed some essential physics of a protoplanetary disk, then the most important models of dust dynamics are browsed, to conclude with a study of coagulative processes starting from the now classic Smoluchowski equation (1916), while following some more recent theoretical patterns and keeping an eye on order of magnitude estimates where possible. i * * * Chapter 1 Protoplanetary Disks A protoplanetary disk is the result of the collapse of a molecular cloud of gas and dust due to gravity. Under the action of the competing forces associated with gravity, gas pressure, magnetic support and rotation, the contracting nebula begins to spin faster because of angular momentum conservation, as it starts to flatten, under the effect of stronger centrifugal forces, into a spinning disk with a bulge at the center. The instabilities in the collapsing and rotating cloud cause localized gravitational collapses, and the bulge becomes the central star.

Co-evolution of dust grains and protoplanetary disks

arXiv (Cornell University), 2023

We propose a new evolutionary process of protoplanetary disks "co-evolution of dust grains and protoplanetary disks", revealed by dust-gas two-fluid non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics simulations considering the growth of dust and associated changes in magnetic resistivity. We found that the dust growth significantly affects disk evolution by changing the coupling between the gas and magnetic field. Moreover, once the dust grains sufficiently grow and the adsorption of charged particles on dust grains becomes negligible, the physical quantities (e.g., density and magnetic field) of the disk are well described by characteristic power laws. In this disk structure, the radial profile of density is steeper and the disk mass is smaller than those of the model ignoring dust growth. We analytically derive these power laws from the basic equations of non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics. The analytical power laws are determined only by observable physical quantities, e.g., central stellar mass and mass accretion rate, and do not include difficult-to-determine parameters e.g., viscous parameter α. Therefore, our model is observationally testable and this disk structure is expected to provide a new perspective for future studies on protostar and disk evolution.

Consistent dust and gas models for protoplanetary disks

Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2016

We propose a set of standard assumptions for the modelling of Class II and III protoplanetary disks, which includes detailed continuum radiative transfer, thermo-chemical modelling of gas and ice, and line radiative transfer from optical to cm wavelengths. The first paper of this series focuses on the assumptions about the shape of the disk, the dust opacities, dust settling, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In particular, we propose new standard dust opacities for disk models, we present a simplified treatment of PAHs in radiative equilibrium which is sufficient to reproduce the PAH emission features, and we suggest using a simple yet physically justified treatment of dust settling. We roughly adjust parameters to obtain a model that predicts continuum and line observations that resemble typical multi-wavelength continuum and line observations of Class II T Tauri stars. We systematically study the impact of each model parameter (disk mass, disk extension and shape, dust settling, dust size and opacity, gas/dust ratio, etc.) on all mainstream continuum and line observables, in particular on the SED, mm-slope, continuum visibilities, and emission lines including [OI] 63 μm, high-J CO lines, (sub-)mm CO isotopologue lines, and CO fundamental ro-vibrational lines. We find that evolved dust properties, i.e. large grains, often needed to fit the SED, have important consequences for disk chemistry and heating/cooling balance, leading to stronger near-to far-IR emission lines in general. Strong dust settling and missing disk flaring have similar effects on continuum observations, but opposite effects on far-IR gas emission lines. PAH molecules can efficiently shield the gas from stellar UV radiation because of their strong absorption and negligible scattering opacities in comparison to evolved dust. The observable millimetre-slope of the SED can become significantly more gentle in the case of cold disk midplanes, which we find regularly in our T Tauri models. We propose to use line observations of robust chemical tracers of the gas, such as O, CO, and H 2 , as additional constraints to determine a number of key properties of the disks, such as disk shape and mass, opacities, and the dust/gas ratio, by simultaneously fitting continuum and line observations.

Simulations of dust-trapping vortices in protoplanetary discs

Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2004

Local three-dimensional shearing box simulations of the compressible coupled dust-gas equations are used in the fluid approximation to study the evolution of different initial vortex configurations in a protoplanetary disc and their dust-trapping capabilities. The initial conditions for the gas are derived from an analytic solution to the compressible Euler equation and the continuity equation. The solution is valid if there is a vacuum outside the vortex. In the simulations the vortex is either embedded in a hot corona, or it is extended in a cylindrical fashion in the vertical direction. Both configurations are found to survive for at least one orbit and lead to accumulation of dust inside the vortex. This confirms earlier findings that dust accumulates in anticyclonic vortices, indicating that this is a viable mechanism for planetesimal formation.

Nonlinear Outcome of Coagulation Instability in Protoplanetary Disks. I. First Numerical Study of Accelerated Dust Growth and Dust Concentration at Outer Radii

The Astrophysical Journal

Our previous linear analysis presents a new instability driven by dust coagulation in protoplanetary disks. The coagulation instability has the potential to concentrate dust grains into rings and assist dust coagulation and planetesimal formation. In this series of papers, we perform numerical simulations and investigate the nonlinear outcome of coagulation instability. In this paper (Paper I), we first conduct local simulations to demonstrate the existence of coagulation instability. Linear growth observed in the simulations is in good agreement with the previous linear analysis. We next conduct radially global simulations to demonstrate that coagulation instability develops during the inside-out disk evolution owing to dust growth. To isolate the various effects on dust concentration and growth, we neglect the effects of back-reaction to a gas disk and dust fragmentation in Paper I. This simplified simulation shows that neither back-reaction nor fragmentation is a prerequisite for...

Radial Drift of Dust in Protoplanetary Disks: The Evolution of Ice lines and Dead zones

2016

We have developed a new model for the astrochemical structure of a viscously evolving protoplanetary disk that couples an analytic description of the disk's temperature and density profile, chemical evolution, and an evolving dust distribution. We compute evolving radial distributions for a range of dust grain sizes, which depend on coagulation, fragmentation and radial drift processes. In particular we find that the water ice line plays an important role in shaping the radial distribution of the maximum grain size because ice coated grains are significantly less susceptible to fragmentation than their dry counterparts. This in turn has important effects on disk ionization and therefore on the location of dead zones. In comparison to a simple constant gas-to-dust ratio model for the dust as an example, we find that the new model predicts an outer dead zone edge that moves in by a factor of about 3 at 1 Myr (to 5 AU) and by a factor of about 14 by 3 Myr (to 0.5 AU). We show that ...

Radial drift of dust in protoplanetary discs: the evolution of ice lines and dead zones

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We have developed a new model for the astrochemical structure of a viscously evolving protoplanetary disk that couples an analytic description of the disk's temperature and density profile, chemical evolution, and an evolving dust distribution. We compute evolving radial distributions for a range of dust grain sizes, which depend on coagulation, fragmentation and radial drift processes. In particular we find that the water ice line plays an important role in shaping the radial distribution of the maximum grain size because ice coated grains are significantly less susceptible to fragmentation than their dry counterparts. This in turn has important effects on disk ionization and therefore on the location of dead zones. In comparison to a simple constant gas-to-dust ratio model for the dust as an example, we find that the new model predicts an outer dead zone edge that moves in by a factor of about 3 at 1 Myr (to 5 AU) and by a factor of about 14 by 3 Myr (to 0.5 AU). We show that the changing position of the dead zone and heat transition traps have important implications for the formation and trapping of planets in protoplanetary disks. Finally, we consider our results in light of recent ALMA observations of HL Tau and TW Hya.