Related papers: From Grains to Planetesimals: Les Houches Lecture
Understanding how dust evolves in protoplanetary disks is crucial to constraining the initial conditions of planet formation. The apparent "mass budget problem", which stems from the comparison of the observed disk masses to the ones…
Context. To form metre-sized pre-planetesimals in protoplanetary discs, growing grains have to decouple from the gas before they are accreted onto the central star during their phase of fast radial migration and thus overcome the so-called…
We use resistive magnetohydrodynamical simulations with the nested grid technique to study the formation of protoplanetary disks around protostars from molecular cloud cores that provide the realistic environments for planet formation. We…
Millimeter interferometry provides evidence for the presence of mm to cm size "pebbles" in the outer parts of disks around pre-main-sequence stars. The observations suggest that large grains are produced relatively early in disk evolution…
Laboratory experiments indicate that direct growth of silicate grains via mutual collisions can only produce particles up to roughly millimeters in size. On the other hand, recent simulations of the streaming instability have shown that…
The similar orbital distances and detection rates of debris disks and the prominent rings observed in protoplanetary disks suggest a potential connection between these structures. We explore this connection with new calculations that follow…
Protoplanetary disks are dynamic objects, within which dust grains and gas are expected to be redistributed over large distances. Evidence for this redistribution is seen both in other protoplanetary disks and in our own Solar System, with…
Recent observations of protoplanetary disks have revealed ring-like structures that can be associated to pressure maxima. Pressure maxima are known to be dust collectors and planet migration traps. Most of planet formation works are based…
We examine the consequences of a model for the circulation of solids in a protoplanetary nebula in which aerodynamic drag is counterbalanced by the recycling of material to the outer disc by a protostellar outflow or a disc wind. This…
We present three-dimensional numerical simulations of particle clumping and planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks with varying amounts of solid material. As centimeter-size pebbles settle to the mid-plane, turbulence develops…
The formation of planetesimals is a necessary step in the formation of planets. While several mechanisms have been proposed, a local dust-to-gas ratio above unity is a strong requirement to trigger the collapse of pebble clouds into…
Gravitational instability (GI) of a dust-rich layer at the midplane of a gaseous circumstellar disk is one proposed mechanism to form planetesimals, the building blocks of rocky planets and gas giant cores. Self-gravity competes against the…
The formation of planetary cores must proceed rapidly in order for the giant planets to accrete their gaseous envelopes before the dissipation of the protoplanetary gas disc (<3 Myr). In orbits beyond 10 AU, direct accumulation of…
In the core accretion model, planetesimals grow by mutual collisions and engulfing millimeter-to-centimeter particles, i.e., pebbles. Pebble accretion can significantly increase the accretion efficiency and help explain the presence of…
Formation of the first planetesimals remains an unsolved problem. Growth by sticking must initiate the process, but multiple studies have revealed a series of barriers that can slow or stall growth, most of them due to nebula turbulence. In…
Aggregation of dust through sticking collisions is the first step of planet formation. Basic physical properties of the evolving dust aggregates strongly depend on the porosity of the aggregates, e.g. mechanical strength, thermal…
Vortices are believed to greatly help the formation of km sized planetesimals by collecting dust particles in their centers. However, vortex dynamics is commonly studied in non-self-gravitating disks. The main goal here is to examine the…
We carry out three dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to study the role of gravitational and drag forces on the concentration of large dust grains (St > 1) in the spiral arms of gravitationally unstable protoplanetary…
Following the recent insight in the material structure of comets, protoplanetesimals are assumed to have low densities and to be highly porous agglomerates. It is still unclear if planetesimals can be formed from these objects by…
Recent years have seen growing interest in the streaming instability as a candidate mechanism to produce planetesimals. However, these investigations have been limited to small-scale simulations. We now present the results of a global…