Dust Settling and Clumping in MRI-turbulent Outer Protoplanetary Disks

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.

Planetesimal Formation in Zonal Flows Arising in Magneto-Rotationally-Unstable Protoplanetary Disks

Recent simulations show long -lived sub- and super-Keplerian flows in protoplanetary disks. These so-called zonal flows are found in local as well as global simulations of magneto-rotationally unstable disks. We investigate the strength and life-time of the resulting long-lived gas over- and under-densities as well as particle concentrations function of the azimuthal and radial size of the local shearing box. Changes in the azimuthal extent do not affect the zonal flow features. However, strength and life-time of zonal flows increase with increasing radial box sizes. Our simulations show indications, and support earlier results, that zonal flows have a natural length scale of approximately 5 pressure scale heights. For the first time, the reaction of dust particles in boxes with zonal flows are studied. We show that particles of some centimeters in size reach a hundred-fold higher density than initially, without any self-gravitating forces acting on the point masses. We further investigate collision velocities of dust grains in a turbulent medium.

Planetesimal and protoplanet dynamics in a turbulent protoplanetary disk

Due to the gravitational influence of density fluctuations driven by magneto-rotational instability in the gas disk, planetesimals and protoplanets undergo diffusive radial migration as well as changes of other orbital properties. The magnitude of the effect on particle orbits has important consequences for planet formation scenarios. We use the local-shearing-box approximation to simulate an ideal, isothermal, magnetized gas disk with vertical density stratification and simultaneously evolve numerous massless particles moving under the gravity of the gas and the host star. Although the results converge with resolution for fixed box dimensions, we find there exists no convergence of the response of the particles to the gravity of the gas against the horizontal box size, up to 16 disk scale heights. This lack of convergence indicate that caution should be exercised when interpreting local-shearing-box models involving gravitational physics of magneto-rotational turbulence.

Recent results from simulations of the magnetorotational instability

The nonlinear saturation of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) is best studied through numerical MHD simulations. Recent results of simulations that adopt the local shearing box approximation, and fully global models that follow the entire disk, are described. Outstanding issues remain, such as a first-principles understanding of the dynamo processes that control saturation with no net magnetic flux. Important directions for future work include a better understanding of basic plasma processes, such as reconnection, dissipation, and particle acceleration, in the MHD turbulence driven by the MRI.