scholarly journals The Irradiation Instability of Protoplanetary Disks

2021 ◽  
Vol 923 (1) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Yanqin Wu ◽  
Yoram Lithwick

Abstract The temperature in most parts of a protoplanetary disk is determined by irradiation from the central star. Numerical experiments of Watanabe and Lin suggested that such disks, also called “passive disks,” suffer from a thermal instability. Here we use analytical and numerical tools to elucidate the nature of this instability. We find that it is related to the flaring of the optical surface, the layer at which starlight is intercepted by the disk. Whenever a disk annulus is perturbed thermally and acquires a larger scale height, disk flaring becomes steeper in the inner part and flatter in the outer part. Starlight now shines more overhead for the inner part and so can penetrate into deeper layers; conversely, it is absorbed more shallowly in the outer part. These geometric changes allow the annulus to intercept more starlight, and the perturbation grows. We call this the irradiation instability. It requires only ingredients known to exist in realistic disks and operates best in parts that are both optically thick and geometrically thin (inside 30 au, but can extend to further reaches when, e.g., dust settling is considered). An unstable disk develops traveling thermal waves that reach order unity in amplitude. In thermal radiation, such a disk should appear as a series of bright rings interleaved with dark shadowed gaps, while in scattered light it resembles a moving staircase. Depending on the gas and dust responses, this instability could lead to a wide range of consequences, such as ALMA rings and gaps, dust traps, vertical circulation, vortices, and turbulence.

Metrologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf D Geckeler ◽  
Matthias Schumann ◽  
Andreas Just ◽  
Michael Krause ◽  
Antti Lassila ◽  
...  

Abstract Autocollimators are versatile devices for angle metrology used in a wide range of applications in engineering and manufacturing. A modern electronic autocollimator generally features two measuring axes and can thus fully determine the surface normal of an optical surface relative to it in space. Until recently, however, the calibration capabilities of the national metrology institutes were limited to plane angles. Although it was possible to calibrate both measuring axes independently of each other, it was not feasible to determine their crosstalk if angular deflections were present in both axes simultaneously. To expand autocollimator calibrations from plane angles to spatial angles, PTB and VTT MIKES have created dedicated calibration devices which are based on different measurement principles and accomplish the task of measurand traceability in different ways. Comparing calibrations of a transfer standard makes it possible to detect systematic measurement errors of the two devices and to evaluate the validity of their uncertainty budgets. The importance of measurand traceability via calibration for a broad spectrum of autocollimator applications is one of the motivating factors behind the creation of both devices and for this comparison of the calibration capabilities of the two national metrology institutes. The latter is the focus of the work presented here.


Author(s):  
Gernot Seebacher ◽  
Axel A. Schmidt ◽  
Jochen Offermann

The paper provides background on how bilge water has changed over the years and how technology has enabled manufacturers to stay ahead of the curve by borrowing technological breakthroughs from other areas to the measurement of oil content in the marine environment. Light scattering provides today a universal and reliable method, able to measure the wide range of oils present in a wildly variable and unpredictable bilge water mixture. Bilge water regulations were put in place to reduce the potential of harm to the environment from oily bilge water discharges. Regulations require that instruments verify effluent quality continually during the discharge process, which precludes the adoption for shipboard use of standard laboratory style testing with the associated time delays to complete the analysis. Measuring oil content with the light scattering measuring instrument is a tried and tested means for compliant bilge water verification. State of the art instruments employ sophisticated light measuring systems and they use complex algorithms to convert the scattered light pattern values into oil content reading, thereby considering interference from other than oil suspended matter, they prevent harm to the environment from bilge water discharges. Paper published with permission.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (S323) ◽  
pp. 352-353
Author(s):  
J. A. López ◽  
M. G. Richer ◽  
M. Pereyra ◽  
M. T. García-Díaz

AbstractBulk outflow or global expansion velocities are presented for a large number of planetary nebulae (PNe) that span a wide range of evolutionary stages and different stellar populations. The sample comprises 133 PNe from the Galactic bulge, 100 mature and highly evolved PNe from the disk, 11 PNe from the Galactic halo and 15 PNe with very low central star masses and low metallicities, for a total of 259 PNe. These results reveal from a statistical perspective the kinematic evolution of the expansion velocities of PNe in relation to changing characteristics of the central star’s wind and ionizing luminosity and as a function of the evolutionary rate determined by the central (CS) mass. The large number of PNe utilized in this work for each group of PNe under study and the homogeneity of the data provide for the first time a solid benchmark form observations for model predictions, as has been described by López et al. (2016).


2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (4) ◽  
pp. 5709-5720
Author(s):  
Loic Nassif-Lachapelle ◽  
Daniel Tamayo

ABSTRACT Direct imaging surveys have found that long-period super-Jupiters are rare. By contrast, recent modelling of the widespread gaps in protoplanetary discs revealed by Atacama Large Millimetre Array suggests an abundant population of smaller Neptune to Jupiter-mass planets at large separations. The thermal emission from such lower-mass planets is negligible at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, leaving only their weak signals in reflected light. Planets do not scatter enough light at these large orbital distances, but there is a natural way to enhance their reflecting area. Each of the four giant planets in our Solar system hosts swarms of dozens of irregular satellites, gravitationally captured planetesimals that fill their host planets’ spheres of gravitational influence. What we see of them today are the leftovers of an intense collisional evolution. At early times, they would have generated bright circumplanetary debris discs. We investigate the properties and detectability of such irregular satellite discs (ISDs) following models for their collisional evolution from Kennedy & Wyatt (2011). We find that the scattered light signals from such ISDs would peak in the 10–100 au semimajor axis range implied by ALMA, and can render planets detectable over a wide range of parameters with upcoming high-contrast instrumentation. We argue that future instruments with wide fields of view could simultaneously characterize the atmospheres of known close-in planets, and reveal the population of long-period Neptune–Jupiter mass exoplanets inaccessible to other detection methods. This provides a complementary and compelling science case that would elucidate the early lives of planetary systems.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S293) ◽  
pp. 152-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Dvorak ◽  
Li-Yong Zhou ◽  
Helmut Baudisch

AbstractWe take as dynamical model for extrasolar planetary systems a central star like our Sun and two giant planets m1 and m2 like Jupiter and Saturn. We change the mass ratio μ=m2/m1 of the two large planets for a wide range of 1/16 < μ < 16. We also change the ratio between the initial semi-major axes (ν=a2/a1) in the range of 1.2 < ν < 3 to model the different architecture of extrasolar planetary systems hosting two giant planets. The results for possible Trojans (Trojan planets) in the equilateral equilibrium points of the inner planet m1 and the outer planet m2 were derived with the aid of numerical integration. It turned out that in many configurations – depending on the mass ratios μ and the semi-major axes ratio ν – giant planets may host Trojans.


2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (3) ◽  
pp. 3672-3701 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Boardman ◽  
G Zasowski ◽  
A Seth ◽  
J Newman ◽  
B Andrews ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The Milky Way provides an ideal laboratory to test our understanding of galaxy evolution, owing to our ability to observe our Galaxy over fine scales. However, connecting the Galaxy to the wider galaxy population remains difficult, due to the challenges posed by our internal perspective and to the different observational techniques employed. Here, we present a sample of galaxies identified as Milky Way analogues on the basis of their stellar masses and bulge-to-total ratios, observed as part of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory survey. We analyse the galaxies in terms of their stellar kinematics and populations as well as their ionized gas contents. We find our sample to contain generally young stellar populations in their outskirts. However, we find a wide range of stellar ages in their central regions, and we detect central active galactic nucleus-like or composite-like activity in roughly half of the sample galaxies, with the other half consisting of galaxies with central star-forming emission or emission consistent with old stars. We measure gradients in gas metallicity and stellar metallicity that are generally flatter in physical units than those measured for the Milky Way; however, we find far better agreement with the Milky Way when scaling gradients by galaxies’ disc scale lengths. From this, we argue much of the discrepancy in metallicity gradients to be due to the relative compactness of the Milky Way, with differences in observing perspective also likely to be a factor.


2003 ◽  
Vol 209 ◽  
pp. 541-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubrie McLean ◽  
Martín A. Guerrero ◽  
Robert A. Gruendl ◽  
You-Hua Chu

The origin of the wide range of morphologies observed in planetary nebulae (PNe) is not well established. The influence of a binary companion of the central star can naturally explain this variety of morphologies, but very few PNe have known binary central stars. The evolution of the binary system with mass loss may result in the displacement of the central star from the nebular center. The large sample of PNe observed by HST is being used to search for de-centered central stars. Preliminary results indicate that the occurrence of de-centered central stars is widespread among all morphological types of PNe.


1996 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 345-346
Author(s):  
M. N. Sevenster ◽  
R. A. Arnold ◽  
L. O. Sjouwerman

An OH/IR star is an intermediate mass AGB star which loses mass and is optically obscured by its envelope. Such stars can be detected in the infrared and by radio maser lines. In particular the OH line (1612 MHz) is bright and has a distinctive profile, that allows us to determine the radial velocity of the central star. OH/IR stars are excellent tracers for the study of Galactic dynamics because they are bright, unaffected by extinction in the OH line – and therefore visible throughout the Galaxy – and because they represent a wide range of stellar masses. The outflow velocity of the circumstellar shell is most likely driven by radiation pressure from the central star on the dust. Therefore outflow velocity increases with stellar luminosity and metallicity, and decreases with age.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. N. Kurdyumov ◽  
E. Ferna´ndez

A correlation formula, Nu = W0(Re)Pr1/3 + W1(Re), that is valid in a wide range of Reynolds and Prandtl numbers has been developed based on the asymptotic expansion for Pr → ∞ for the forced heat convection from a circular cylinder. For large Prandtl numbers, the boundary layer theory for the energy equation is applied and compared with the numerical solutions of the full Navier Stokes equations for the flow field and energy equation. It is shown that the two-terms asymptotic approximation can be used to calculate the Nusselt number even for Prandtl numbers of order unity to a high degree of accuracy. The formulas for coefficients W0 and W1, are provided.


Author(s):  
C. Abid ◽  
M. Medale ◽  
F. Koffi ◽  
F. Papini ◽  
A. Benderradji

The emphasis of this communication is to make a synthesis of several results we have obtained in various mixed convection configurations. This study has been conducted for circular or rectangular ducts submitted to different ways of heating (vertical or horizontal thermal gradient in the rectangular case and combined vertical and horizontal in the circular case). The bibliography is rather poor for mixed convection in liquids, so the chosen working fluid used here is water. Moreover, a wide range of forced fluid flow and heat flux rates has been considered spreading from laminar to turbulent flow. The characterization of fluid flow and heat transfer regimes is based on temporal recording of temperature measurements obtained in several locations by means of thermocouples or infrared thermography. The analysis of these temperature signals highlights several regimes depending on control parameters. The flow structure in the cases of uniformly heated circular duct and the rectangular one heated from below is constituted of two longitudinal rolls and we notice only one roll in the case of the rectangular duct submitted to the horizontal thermal gradient. For low Reynolds and Rayleigh Numbers, the behavior of all these configurations is stable, however the increasing of these parameters induces thermal instability in the case of circular and rectangular ducts heated from below. That means that the thermal vertical gradient is responsible of the occurring of the thermal instability. This result shows that the horizontal thermal gradient is a stabilizing gradient while the vertical one is a destabilizing one. As this instability enhances heat transfer, it will be very helpful to characterize and to identify the domain where it is occurring in order to prevent or to provoke it depending on the expected performance of the heat exchanger. In this paper, we propose to establish a diagram showing the domain of occurrence of this instability for the various cases cited above and to describe the fluid flow and heat transfer associated to these configurations.


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