Related papers: The Snow Border
The C/O ratio is predicted to regulate the atmospheric chemistry in hot Jupiters. Recent observations suggest that some exo-planets, e.g. Wasp 12- b, have atmospheric C/O ratios substantially different from the solar value of 0.54. In this…
Mineralogical studies of silicate features emitted by dust grains in protoplanetary disks and Solar System bodies can shed light on the progress of planet formation. The significant fraction of crystalline material in comets, chondritic…
The crucial initial step in planet formation is the agglomeration of micron-sized dust into macroscopic aggregates. This phase is likely to happen very early during the protostellar disc formation, which is characterised by active gas…
Star formation often occurs within or nearby stellar clusters. Irradiation by nearby massive stars can photoevaporate protoplanetary disks around young stars (so-called proplyds) which raises questions regarding the ability of planet…
I examine the position of the ice line in circumbinary disks heated by steady mass accretion and stellar irradiation and compare with the critical semi-major axis, interior to which planetary orbits are unstable. There is a critical binary…
The Rosseland mean opacity of dust in protoplanetary disks is often calculated assuming the interstellar medium (ISM) size distribution and a constant dust-to-gas ratio. However, the dust size distribution and the dust-to-gas ratio in…
Many protostellar disks show central cavities, rings, or spiral arms likely caused by low-mass stellar or planetary companions, yet few such features are conclusively tied to bodies embedded in the disks. We note that even small features on…
A model is proposed for the formation of water ice mantles on grains in interstellar clouds. This occurs by direct accretion of monomers from the gas, be they formed by gas or surface reactions. The model predicts the existence of a…
The snowlines of various volatile species in protoplanetary disks are associated with abrupt changes in gas composition and dust physical properties. Volatiles may affect dust growth, as they cover grains with icy mantles that can change…
Grain surface chemistry is key to the composition of protoplanetary disks around young stars. The temperature of grains depends on their size. We evaluate the impact of this temperature dependence on the disk chemistry. We model a…
The process of forming a circumbinary planet is thought to be intimately related to the structure of the nascent circumbinary disc. It has been shown that the structure of a circumbinary disc depends strongly on 3-dimensional effects and on…
There is a long-standing discussion in the astrophysical/astrochemical community as to the structure and morphology of dust grains in various astrophysical environments (e.g., interstellar clouds, protostellar envelopes, protoplanetary and…
We investigate the possibility of very early formation of primordial star clusters from high-\sigma perturbations in cold dark matter dominated structure formation scenarios. For this we have developed a powerful 2-level hierarchical…
Protostellar binaries harbour complex environment morphologies. Observations represent a snapshot in time, and projection and optical depth effects impair our ability to interpret them. Careful comparison with high-resolution models that…
Collisional growth of dust occurs in all regions of protoplanetary disks with certain materials dominating between various condensation lines. The sticking properties of the prevalent dust species depend on the specific temperatures. The…
We present a new gas-grain chemical model to constrain the effect of grain size distribution on molecular abundances in starless and pre-stellar cores. We introduce grain-size dependence simultaneously for cosmic-ray (CR)-induced desorption…
[Abridged] Planets and their atmospheres are built from gas and solid material in protoplanetary disks. This solid material grows from smaller, micron-sized grains to larger sizes in the disks, during the process of planet formation. Our…
During the evolution of diffuse clouds to molecular clouds, gas-phase molecules freeze out on surfaces of small dust particles to form ices. On dust surfaces, water is the main constituent of the icy mantle in which a complex chemistry is…
Icy pebbles may play an important role in planet formation close to the water ice line of protoplanetary discs. There, dust coagulation is more efficient and re-condensation of vapor on pebbles may enhance their growth outside the ice line.…
We investigate dust growth due to settling in a 1D vertical column of a protoplanetary disk. It is known from the observed 10 micron feature in disk SEDs, that small micron-sized grains are present at the disk atmosphere throughout the…