What Fraction of Sun-like Stars have Planets?

The radial velocities of ~1800 nearby Sun-like stars are currently being monitored by eight high-sensitivity Doppler exoplanet surveys. Approximately 90 of these stars have been found to host exoplanets massive enough to be detectable. Thus at least ~5% of target stars possess planets. If we limit our analysis to target stars that have been monitored the longest (~15 years), ~11% possess planets. If we limit our analysis to stars monitored the longest and whose low surface activity allow the most precise velocity measurements, ~25% possess planets. By identifying trends of the exoplanet mass and period distributions in a sub-sample of exoplanets less-biased by selection effects, and linearly extrapolating these trends into regions of parameter space that have not yet been completely sampled, we find at least ~9% of Sun-like stars have planets in the mass and orbital period ranges Msin(i) > 0.3 M_Jupiter and P 0.1 M_Jupiter and P < 60 years. Even this larger area of the mass-period plane is less than 20% of the area occupied by our planetary system, suggesting that this estimate is still a lower limit to the true fraction of Sun-like stars with planets, which may be as large as ~100%.Comment: Conforms to version accepted by ApJ. Color version and movie available at http://bat.phys.unsw.edu.au/~charley/download/whatfrac

Workshop on Physics of Accretion Disks Around Compact and Young Stars

The purpose of the two-day Workshop on Physics of Accretion Disks Around Compact and Young Stars was to bring together workers on accretion disks in the western Gulf region (Texas and Louisiana). Part 2 presents the workshop program, a list of poster presentations, and a list of workshop participants. Accretion disks are believed to surround many stars. Some of these disks form around compact stars, such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes that are members of binary systems and reveal themselves as a power source, especially in the x-ray and gamma regions of the spectrum. On the other hand, protostellar disks are believed to be accretion disks associated with young, pre-main-sequence stars and manifest themselves mostly in infrared and radio observations. These disks are considered to be a natural outcome of the star formation process. The focus of this workshop included theory and observations relevant to accretion disks around compact objects and newly forming stars, with the primary purpose of bringing the two communities together for intellectual cross-fertilization. The nature of the workshop was exploratory, to see how much interaction is possible between distinct communities and to better realize the local potential in this subject. A critical workshop activity was identification and documentation of key issues that are of mutual interest to both communities

Global Evolution of Solid Matter in Turbulent Protoplanetry Disks

The problem of planetary system formation and its subsequent character can only be addressed by studying the global evolution of solid material entrained in gaseous protoplanetary disks. We start to investigate this problem by considering the space-time development of aerodynamic forces that cause solid particles to decouple from the gas. The aim of this work is to demonstrate that only the smallest particles are attached to the gas, or that the radial distribution of the solid matter has no momentary relation to the radial distribution of the gas. We present the illustrative example wherein a gaseous disk of 0.245 solar mass and angular momentum of 5.6 x 10(exp 52) g/sq cm/s is allowed to evolve due to turbulent viscosity characterized by either alpha = 10(exp -2) or alpha = 10(exp -3). The motion of solid particles suspended in a viscously evolving gaseous disk is calculated numerically for particles of different sizes. In addition we calculate the global evolution of single-sized, noncoagulating particles. We find that particles smaller than 0.1 cm move with the gas; larger particles have significant radial velocities relative to the gas. Particles larger than 0.1 cm but smaller than 10(exp 3) cm have inward radial velocities much larger than the gas, whereas particles larger than 10(exp 4) cm have inward velocities much smaller than the gas. A significant difference in the form of the radial distribution of solids and the gas develops with time. It is the radial distribution of solids, rather than the gas, that determines the character of an emerging planetary system

Hybrid Mechanisms for Gas/Ice Giant Planet Formation

The effects of gas pressure gradients on the motion of solid grains in the solar nebula substantially enhances the efficiency of forming protoplanetary cores in the standard core accretion model in 'hybrid' scenarios for gas/ice giant planet formation. Such a scenario is enhanced core accretion which results from Epstein-drag induced inward radial migration of mm-sized grains and subsequent particle subdisk gravitational instability needed to build up a population of 1 km planetesimals. Solid/gas ratios can be enhanced by nearly $\sim 10\times$ over those in Minimum Mass Solar Nebula (MMSN) in the outer solar nebula (a $>$ 20 AU), increasing the oligarchic core masses and decreasing formation timescales for protoplanetary cores. A 10 $M_{\oplus}$ core can form on $\sim 10^{6}-10^{7}$ year timescales at 15 - 25 AU compared to $\sim 10^{8}$ years in the standard model,alleviating the major problem plaguing the core accretion model for gas/ice giant planet formation.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 12pt preprint, emulateapj style; two sections added addressing shear-dominated accretion & disk conditions necessary for GI; Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

An alternative look at the snowline in protoplanetary disks

We have calculated an evolution of protoplanetary disk from an extensive set of initial conditions using a time-dependent model capable of simultaneously keeping track of the global evolution of gas and water-ice. A number of simplifications and idealizations allows for an embodiment of gas-particle coupling, coagulation, sedimentation, and evaporation/condensation processes. We have shown that, when the evolution of ice is explicitly included, the location of the snowline has to be calculated directly as the inner edge of the region where ice is present and not as the radius where disk's temperature equals the evaporation temperature of water-ice. The final location of the snowline is set by an interplay between all involved processes and is farther from the star than implied by the location of the evaporation temperature radius. The evolution process naturally leads to an order of magnitude enhancement in surface density of icy material.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 8 pages, 4 figure

Planetary migration in evolving planetesimals discs

In the current paper, we further improved the model for the migration of planets introduced in Del Popolo et al. (2001) and extended to time-dependent planetesimal accretion disks in Del Popolo and Eksi (2002). In the current study, the assumption of Del Popolo and Eksi (2002), that the surface density in planetesimals is proportional to that of gas, is released. In order to obtain the evolution of planetesimal density, we use a method developed in Stepinski and Valageas (1997) which is able to simultaneously follow the evolution of gas and solid particles for up to 10^7 yrs. Then, the disk model is coupled to migration model introduced in Del Popolo et al. (2001) in order to obtain the migration rate of the planet in the planetesimal. We find that the properties of solids known to exist in protoplanetary systems, together with reasonable density profiles for the disk, lead to a characteristic radius in the range 0.03-0.2 AU for the final semi-major axis of the giant planet.Comment: IJMP A in prin

Protoplanetary Disk Turbulence Driven by the Streaming Instability: Non-Linear Saturation and Particle Concentration

We present simulations of the non-linear evolution of streaming instabilities in protoplanetary disks. The two components of the disk, gas treated with grid hydrodynamics and solids treated as superparticles, are mutually coupled by drag forces. We find that the initially laminar equilibrium flow spontaneously develops into turbulence in our unstratified local model. Marginally coupled solids (that couple to the gas on a Keplerian time-scale) trigger an upward cascade to large particle clumps with peak overdensities above 100. The clumps evolve dynamically by losing material downstream to the radial drift flow while receiving recycled material from upstream. Smaller, more tightly coupled solids produce weaker turbulence with more transient overdensities on smaller length scales. The net inward radial drift is decreased for marginally coupled particles, whereas the tightly coupled particles migrate faster in the saturated turbulent state. The turbulent diffusion of solid particles, measured by their random walk, depends strongly on their stopping time and on the solids-to-gas ratio of the background state, but diffusion is generally modest, particularly for tightly coupled solids. Angular momentum transport is too weak and of the wrong sign to influence stellar accretion. Self-gravity and collisions will be needed to determine the relevance of particle overdensities for planetesimal formation.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (17 pages). Movies of the simulations can be downloaded at http://www.mpia.de/~johansen/research_en.ph

Formation of giant planets in disks with different metallicities

We present the first results from simulations of processes leading to planet formation in protoplanetary disks with different metallicities. For a given metallicity, we construct a two-dimensional grid of disk models with different initial masses and radii ($M_0$, $R_0$). For each disk, we follow the evolution of gas and solids from an early evolutionary stage, when all solids are in the form of small dust grains, to the stage when most solids have condensed into planetesimals. Then, based on the core accretion - gas capture scenario, we estimate the planet-bearing capability of the environment defined by the final planetesimal swarm and the still evolving gaseous component of the disk. We define the probability of planet-formation, $P_p$, as the normalized fractional area in the ($M_0$, $\log R_0$) plane populated by disks that have formed planets inside 5 AU. With such a definition, and under the assumption that the population of planets discovered at $R$ $<$ 5 AU is not significantly contaminated by planets that have migrated from $R$ $>$ 5 AU, our results agree fairly well with the observed dependence between the probability that a star harbors a planet and the star's metal content. The agreement holds for the disk viscosity parameter $\alpha$ ranging from $10^{-3}$ to $10^{-2}$, and it becomes much poorer when the redistribution of solids relative to the gas is not allowed for during the evolution of model disks.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 6 pages, 6 figure