scholarly journals On the Numerical Robustness of the Streaming Instability: Particle Concentration and Gas Dynamics in Protoplanetary Disks

2018 ◽  
Vol 862 (1) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rixin Li ◽  
Andrew N. Youdin ◽  
Jacob B. Simon
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (S299) ◽  
pp. 177-178
Author(s):  
Chao-Chin Yang ◽  
Anders Johansen

AbstractIn current theory of planet formation, streaming instability is one of the most promising mechanisms to overcome the meter-barrier in the course of core accretion. Almost all previous works, however, were focused on a local region of protoplanetary disks with a limited size of about 0.2 gas scale heights. Only one radial filamentary particle concentration was seen in these studies. To address this, we conduct the largest-scale simulations of this kind to date, up to 0.8 gas scale heights both horizontally and vertically. We demonstrate that streaming instability remains robust on large scale and multiple radial particle concentrations exist in large enough boxes. This result may be important in characterising the feeding zone of planetesimal formation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 620 ◽  
pp. A134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Djoeke Schoonenberg ◽  
Chris W. Ormel ◽  
Sebastiaan Krijt

We introduce a new Lagrangian smooth-particle method to model the growth and drift of pebbles in protoplanetary disks. The Lagrangian nature of the model makes it especially suited to following characteristics of individual (groups of) particles, such as their composition. In this work we focus on the water content of solid particles. Planetesimal formation via streaming instability is taken into account, partly based on previous results on streaming instability outside the water snowline that were presented in a recent publication. We validated our model by reproducing earlier results from the literature and apply our model to steady-state viscous gas disks (with constant gas accretion rate) around stars with different masses. We also present various other models where we explore the effects of pebble accretion, the fragmentation velocity threshold, the global metallicity of the disk, and a time-dependent gas accretion rate. We find that planetesimals preferentially form in a local annulus outside the water snowline, at early times in the lifetime of the disk (≲105 yr), when the pebble mass fluxes are high enough to trigger the streaming instability. During this first phase in the planet formation process, the snowline location hardly changes due to slow viscous evolution, and we conclude that assuming a constant gas accretion rate is justified in this first stage. The efficiency of converting the solids reservoir of the disk to planetesimals depends on the location of the water snowline. Cooler disks with a closer-in water snowline are more efficient at producing planetesimals than hotter disks where the water snowline is located further away from the star. Therefore, low-mass stars tend to form planetesimals more efficiently, but any correlation may be overshadowed by the spread in disk properties.


2018 ◽  
Vol 618 ◽  
pp. A75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noemi Schaffer ◽  
Chao-Chin Yang ◽  
Anders Johansen

The radial drift and diffusion of dust particles in protoplanetary disks affect both the opacity and temperature of such disks, as well as the location and timing of planetesimal formation. In this paper, we present results of numerical simulations of particle-gas dynamics in protoplanetary disks that include dust grains with various size distributions. We have considered three scenarios in terms of particle size ranges, one where the Stokes number τs = 10−1−100, one where τs = 10−4−10−1, and finally one where τs = 10−3−100. Moreover, we considered both discrete and continuous distributions in particle size. In accordance with previous works we find in our multispecies simulations that different particle sizes interact via the gas and as a result their dynamics changes compared to the single-species case. The larger species trigger the streaming instability and create turbulence that drives the diffusion of the solid materials. We measured the radial equilibrium velocity of the system and find that the radial drift velocity of the large particles is reduced in the multispecies simulations and that the small particle species move on average outwards. We also varied the steepness of the size distribution, such that the exponent of the solid number density distribution, dN∕da ∝ a−q, is either q = 3 or q = 4. Overall, we find that the steepness of the size distribution and the discrete versus continuous approach have little impact on the results. The level of diffusion and drift rates are mainly dictated by the range of particle sizes. We measured the scale height of the particles and observe that small grains are stirred up well above the sedimented midplane layer where the large particles reside. Our measured diffusion and drift parameters can be used in coagulation models for planet formation as well as to understand relative mixing of the components of primitive meteorites (matrix, chondrules and CAIs) prior to inclusion in their parent bodies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 804 (1) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Raettig ◽  
Hubert Klahr ◽  
Wladimir Lyra

2021 ◽  
Vol 923 (1) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Karina Maucó ◽  
Carlos Carrasco-González ◽  
Matthias R. Schreiber ◽  
Anibal Sierra ◽  
Johan Olofsson ◽  
...  

Abstract One of the most important questions in the field of planet formation is how millimeter- and centimeter-sized dust particles overcome radial drift and fragmentation barriers to form kilometer-sized planetesimals. ALMA observations of protoplanetary disks, in particular transition disks or disks with clear signs of substructures, can provide new constraints on theories of grain growth and planetesimal formation, and therefore represent one possibility for progress on this issue. We here present ALMA band 4 (2.1 mm) observations of the transition disk system Sz 91, and combine them with previously obtained band 6 (1.3 mm) and band 7 (0.9 mm) observations. Sz 91, with its well-defined millimeter ring, more extended gas disk, and evidence of smaller dust particles close to the star, constitutes a clear case of dust filtering and the accumulation of millimeter-sized particles in a gas pressure bump. We compute the spectral index (nearly constant at ∼3.34), optical depth (marginally optically thick), and maximum grain size (∼0.61 mm) in the dust ring from the multi-wavelength ALMA observations, and compare the results with recently published simulations of grain growth in disk substructures. Our observational results are in strong agreement with the predictions of models for grain growth in dust rings that include fragmentation and planetesimal formation through streaming instability.


2022 ◽  
Vol 924 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Ziyan Xu ◽  
Xue-Ning Bai

Abstract Planetesimal formation is a crucial yet poorly understood process in planet formation. It is widely believed that planetesimal formation is the outcome of dust clumping by the streaming instability (SI). However, recent analytical and numerical studies have shown that the SI can be damped or suppressed by external turbulence, and at least the outer regions of protoplanetary disks are likely weakly turbulent due to magneto-rotational instability (MRI). We conduct high-resolution local shearing-box simulations of hybrid particle-gas magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), incorporating ambipolar diffusion as the dominant nonideal MHD effect, applicable to outer disk regions. We first show that dust backreaction enhances dust settling toward the midplane by reducing turbulence correlation time. Under modest level of MRI turbulence, we find that dust clumping is in fact easier than the conventional SI case, in the sense that the threshold of solid abundance for clumping is lower. The key to dust clumping includes dust backreaction and the presence of local pressure maxima, which in our work is formed by the MRI zonal flows overcoming background pressure gradient. Overall, our results support planetesimal formation in the MRI-turbulent outer protoplanetary disks, especially in ring-like substructures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 635 ◽  
pp. A190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urs Schäfer ◽  
Anders Johansen ◽  
Robi Banerjee

The streaming instability is a leading candidate mechanism to explain the formation of planetesimals. However, the role of this instability in the driving of turbulence in protoplanetary disks, given its fundamental nature as a linear hydrodynamical instability, has so far not been investigated in detail. We study the turbulence that is induced by the streaming instability as well as its interaction with the vertical shear instability. For this purpose, we employ the FLASH Code to conduct two-dimensional axisymmetric global disk simulations spanning radii from 1  to 100 au, including the mutual drag between gas and dust as well as the radial and vertical stellar gravity. If the streaming instability and the vertical shear instability start their growth at the same time, we find the turbulence in the dust midplane layer to be primarily driven by the streaming instability. The streaming instability gives rise to vertical gas motions with a Mach number of up to ~10−2. The dust scale height is set in a self-regulatory manner to about 1% of the gas scale height. In contrast, if the vertical shear instability is allowed to saturate before the dust is introduced into our simulations, then it continues to be the main source of the turbulence in the dust layer. The vertical shear instability induces turbulence with a Mach number of ~10−1 and thus impedes dust sedimentation. Nonetheless, we find the vertical shear instability and the streaming instability in combination to lead to radial dust concentration in long-lived accumulations that are significantly denser than those formed by the streaming instability alone. Therefore, the vertical shear instability may promote planetesimal formation by creating weak overdensities that act as seeds for the streaming instability.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document