Global magnetohydrodynamical models of turbulence in protoplanetary disks I. A cylindrical potential on a Cartesian grid and transport of solids

We present global 3D MHD simulations of disks of gas and solids, aiming at developing models that can be used to study various scenarios of planet formation and planet-disk interaction in turbulent accretion disks. A second goal is to show that Cartesian codes are comparable to cylindrical and spherical ones in handling the magnetohydrodynamics of the disk simulations, as the disk-in-a-box models presented here develop and sustain MHD turbulence. We investigate the dependence of the magnetorotational instability on disk scale height, finding evidence that the turbulence generated by the magnetorotational instability grows with thermal pressure. The turbulent stresses depend on the thermal pressure obeying a power law of 0.24+/-0.03, compatible with the value of 0.25 found in shearing box calculations. The ratio of stresses decreased with increasing temperature. We also study the dynamics of boulders in the hydromagnetic turbulence. The vertical turbulent diffusion of the embedded boulders is comparable to the turbulent viscosity of the flow. Significant overdensities arise in the solid component as boulders concentrate in high pressure regions.Comment: Changes after peer review proces

The interplay between radiation pressure and the photoelectric instability in optically thin disks of gas and dust

Previous theoretical works have shown that in optically thin disks, dust grains are photoelectrically stripped of electrons by starlight, heating nearby gas and possibly creating a dust clumping instability, the photoelectric instability (PeI), that significantly alters global disk structure. In the current work, we use the Pencil Code to perform the first numerical models of the PeI that include stellar radiation pressure on dust grains in order to explore the parameter regime in which the instability operates. In models with gas surface densities greater than $\sim$$10^{-4}~\mathrm{g}~\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$, we see a variety of dust structures, including sharp concentric rings and non-axisymmetric arcs and clumps that represent dust surface density enhancements of factors of $\sim$$5-20$ depending on the run parameters. The gas distributions show various structures as well, including clumps and arcs formed from spiral arms. In models with lower gas surface densities, vortices and smooth spiral arms form in the gas distribution, but the dust is too weakly coupled to the gas to be significantly perturbed. In one high gas surface density model, we include a large, low-order gas viscosity, and, in agreement with previous radiation pressure-free models, find that it observably smooths the structures that form in the gas and dust, suggesting that resolved images of a given disk may be useful for deriving constraints on the effective viscosity of its gas. Broadly, our models show that radiation pressure does not preclude the formation of complex structure from the PeI, but the qualitative manifestation of the PeI depends strongly on the parameters of the system. The PeI may provide an explanation for unusual disk morphologies such as the moving blobs of the AU Mic disk, the asymmetric dust distribution of the 49 Ceti disk, and the rings and arcs found in the disk around HD 141569A.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures; submitted to Ap

Formation of sharp eccentric rings in debris disks with gas but without planets

‘Debris disks’ around young stars (analogues of the Kuiper Belt in our Solar System) show a variety of non-trivial structures attributed to planetary perturbations and used to constrain the properties of those planets. However, these analyses have largely ignored the fact that some debris disks are found to contain small quantities of gas, a component that all such disks should contain at some level. Several debris disks have been measured with a dust-to-gas ratio of about unity, at which the effect of hydrodynamics on the structure of the disk cannot be ignored. Here we report linear and nonlinear modelling that shows that dust–gas interactions can produce some of the key patterns attributed to planets. We find a robust clumping instability that organizes the dust into narrow, eccentric rings, similar to the Fomalhaut debris disk. The conclusion that such disks might contain planets is not necessarily required to explain these systems

A Link Between the Semi-Major Axis of Extrasolar Gas Giant Planets and Stellar Metallicity

The fact that most extrasolar planets found to date are orbiting metal-rich stars lends credence to the core accretion mechanism of gas giant planet formation over its competitor, the disc instability mechanism. However, the core accretion mechanism is not refined to the point of explaining orbital parameters such as their unexpected semi-major axes and eccentricities. We propose a model, which correlates the metallicity of the host star with the original semi-major axis of its most massive planet, prior to migration, considering that the core accretion scenario governs giant gas planet formation. The model predicts that the optimum regions for planetary formation shift inward as stellar metallicity decreases, providing an explanation for the observed absence of long period planets in metal-poor stars. We compare our predictions with the available data on extrasolar planets for stars with masses similar to the mass of the Sun. A fitting procedure produces an estimate of what we define as the Zero Age Planetary Orbit (ZAPO) curve as a function of the metallicity of the star. The model also hints that the lack of planets circling metal-poor stars may be partly caused by an enhanced destruction probability during the migration process, since the planets lie initially closer to the central stars.Comment: Nature of the replacement: According to recent simulations, the temperature profile, T, is more adequately reproduced by beta = 1 rather than beta = 2. We have introduced a distance scale factor that solves the very fast drop of T for low metallicity and introduces naturally the inferior distance limit of our ZAPO. Under this modification all the fitting process was altere

The baroclinic instability in the context of layered accretion. Self-sustained vortices and their magnetic stability in local compressible unstratified models of protoplanetary disks

Turbulence and angular momentum transport in accretion disks remains a topic of debate. With the realization that dead zones are robust features of protoplanetary disks, the search for hydrodynamical sources of turbulence continues. A possible source is the baroclinic instability (BI), which has been shown to exist in unmagnetized non-barotropic disks. We present shearing box simulations of baroclinicly unstable, magnetized, 3D disks, in order to assess the interplay between the BI and other instabilities, namely the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) and the magneto-elliptical instability. We find that the vortices generated and sustained by the baroclinic instability in the purely hydrodynamical regime do not survive when magnetic fields are included. The MRI by far supersedes the BI in growth rate and strength at saturation. The resulting turbulence is virtually identical to an MRI-only scenario. We measured the intrinsic vorticity profile of the vortex, finding little radial variation in the vortex core. Nevertheless, the core is disrupted by an MHD instability, which we identify with the magneto-elliptic instability. This instability has nearly the same range of unstable wavelengths as the MRI, but has higher growth rates. In fact, we identify the MRI as a limiting case of the magneto-elliptic instability, when the vortex aspect ratio tends to infinity (pure shear flow). We conclude that vortex excitation and self-sustenance by the baroclinic instability in protoplanetary disks is viable only in low ionization, i.e., the dead zone. Our results are thus in accordance with the layered accretion paradigm. A baroclinicly unstable dead zone should be characterized by the presence of large-scale vortices whose cores are elliptically unstable, yet sustained by the baroclinic feedback. As magnetic fields destroy the vortices and the MRI outweighs the BI, the active layers are unmodified.Comment: 19+3 pages, 20+1 figures. Accepted by A&A, final versio