The two-fluid analysis of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in dusty layer of a protoplanetary disk: A possible path toward the planetesimal formation through the gravitational instability (original) (raw)

Two-fluid instability of dust and gas in the dust layer of a protoplanetary disk

Instabilities of the dust layer in a protoplanetary disk are investigated. It is known that the streaming instability develops and dust density concentration occurs in a situation where the initial dust density is uniform. This work considers the effect of initial dust density gradient vertical to the midplane. Dust and gas are treated as different fluids. Pressure of dust fluid is assumed to be zero. The gas friction time is assumed to be constant. Axisymmetric two-dimensional numerical simulation was performed using the spectral method. We found that an instability develops with a growth rate on the order of the Keplerian angular velocity even if the gas friction time multiplied by the Keplerian angular velocity is as small as 0.001. This instability is powered by two sources: (1) the vertical shear of the azimuthal velocity, and (2) the relative motion of dust and gas coupled with the dust density fluctuation due to advection. This instability diffuses dust by turbulent advection and the maximum dust density decreases. This means that the dust concentration by the streaming instability which is seen in the case of a uniform initial dust density becomes ineffective as dust density gradient increases by the dust settling toward the midplane.

Two-fluid Instability of Dust and Gas in the Dust Layer of a Protoplanetary Disk. ArXiv e-prints

Instabilities of the dust layer in a protoplanetary disk are investigated. It is known that the streaming instability develops and dust density concentration occurs in a situation where the initial dust density is uniform. This work considers the effect of initial dust density gradient vertical to the midplane. Dust and gas are treated as different fluids. Pressure of dust fluid is assumed to be zero. The gas friction time is assumed to be constant. Axisymmetric two-dimensional numerical simulation was performed using the spectral method. We found that an instability develops with a growth rate on the order of the Keplerian angular velocity even if the gas friction time multiplied by the Keplerian angular velocity is as small as 0.001. This instability is powered by two sources: (1) the vertical shear of the azimuthal velocity, and (2) the relative motion of dust and gas coupled with the dust density fluctuation due to advection. This instability diffuses dust by turbulent advection and the maximum dust density decreases. This means that the dust concentration by the streaming instability which is seen in the case of a uniform initial dust density becomes ineffective as dust density gradient increases by the dust settling toward the midplane.

Ring Structure Formation in Protoplanetary Disks due to the Two-Fluid Secular Gravitational Instability: An Indicator of Dust Concentration

The instability in protoplanetary disks due to gas-dust friction and self-gravity of gas and dust is investigated by linear analysis. For conditions typical of protoplanetaly disks, the instability grows, even in gravitationally stable disks, on a timescale of order 10 4−5 yr at a radius of order 100AU. If we ignore the dynamical feedback from dust grains in the gas equation of motion, the instability reduces to the so-called "secular gravitational instability", that was investigated previously as the instability of dust in a fixed background gas flow. In this work, we solve the equation of motion for both gas and dust consistently and find that long-wavelength perturbations are stable, in contrast to the secular gravitational instability in the simplified treatment. The instability is expected to form ring structures in protoplanetary disks. The width of the ring formed at a radius of 100 AU is a few tens of AU. Therefore, the instability is a candidate for the formation mechanism of observed ring-like structures in disks. Another aspect of the instability is the accumulation of dust grains, hence the instability may play an important role in the formation of planetesimals, rocky protoplanets, and cores of gas giants located at radii ∼100 AU. If these objects survive the dispersal of the gaseous component of the disk, they may be the origin of debris disks.

Secular Gravitational Instability of a Dust Layer in Shear Turbulence

The Astrophysical Journal, 2012

We perform a linear stability analysis of a dust layer in a turbulent gas disk. Youdin (2011) investigated the secular gravitational instability of a dust layer using hydrodynamic equations with a turbulent diffusion term. We obtain essentially the same result independently of Youdin (2011). In the present analysis, we restrict the area of interest to small dust particles, while investigating the secular gravitational instability in a more rigorous manner. We discuss the time evolution of the dust surface density distribution using a stochastic model and derive the advection-diffusion equation. The validity of the analysis by Youdin is confirmed in the strong drag limit. We demonstrate quantitatively that the finite thickness of a dust layer weakens the secular gravitational instability and that the density-dependent diffusion coefficient changes the growth rate. We apply the obtained results to the turbulence driven by the shear instability and find that the secular gravitational instability is faster than the radial drift when the gas density is three times as large as that in the minimum-mass disk model. If the dust particles are larger than chondrules, the secular gravitational instability grows within the lifetime of a protoplanetary disk.

Non-linear development of secular gravitational instability in protoplanetary disks

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

We perform non-linear simulation of secular gravitational instability (GI) in protoplanetary disks, which has been proposed as a mechanism of planetesimal and multiple ring formation. Since the timescale of the growth of the secular GI is much longer than the Keplerian rotation period, we develop a new numerical scheme for a long-term calculation utilizing the concept of symplectic integration. With our new scheme, we first investigate the non-linear development of the secular GI in a disk without a pressure gradient in the initial state. We find that the surface density of dust increases by more than a factor of 100 while that of gas does not increase even by a factor of 2, which results in the formation of dust-dominated rings. A line mass of the dust ring tends to be very close to the critical line mass of a self-gravitating isothermal filament. Our results indicate that the non-linear growth of the secular GI provides a powerful mechanism to concentrate the dust. We also find that the dust ring formed via the non-linear growth of the secular GI migrates inward with a low velocity, which is driven by the self-gravity of the ring. We give a semi-analytical expression for the inward migration speed of the dusty ring.

The Effect of the Coriolis Force on Kelvin‐Helmholtz–driven Mixing in Protoplanetary Disks

The Astrophysical Journal, 2005

We study the stability of protoplanetary disks with vertical velocity gradients in their equilibrium rotation rates; such gradients are expected to develop when dust settles into the midplane. Using a linear stability analysis of a simple three-layer model, we show that the onset of instability occurs at a larger value of the Richardson number, and therefore for a thicker layer, when the effects of Coriolis forces are included. This analysis also shows that evensymmetry (midplane crossing) modes develop faster than odd-symmetry ones. These conclusions are corroborated by a large number of nonlinear numerical simulations with two different parameterized prescriptions for the initial (continuous) dust distributions. Based on these numerical experiments, the Richardson number required for marginal stability is more than an order of magnitude larger than the traditional 1 4 value. The dominant modes that grow have horizontal wavelengths of several initial dust scale heights and in nonlinear stages mix solids fairly homogeneously over a comparable vertical range. We conclude that gravitational instability may be more difficult to achieve than previously thought and that the vertical distribution of matter within the dust layer is likely globally, rather than locally, determined.

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...