Related papers: Large grains can grow in circumstellar discs
We present ATCA results of a 3 and 7 mm continuum survey of 20 T Tauri stars in the Chamaeleon and Lupus star forming regions. This survey aims to identify protoplanetary discs with signs of grain growth. We detected 90% of the sources at 3…
We present ATCA interferometric observations of the old (13 Myr), nearby (86pc) classical T Tauri star, PDS 66. Unresolved 3 and 12 mm continuum emission is detected towards PDS 66, and upper limits are derived for the 3 and 6 cm flux…
Transition disc systems are young stars that appear to be on the verge of dispersing their protoplanetary discs. We explore the nature of these systems by comparing the stellar accretion rates and disc masses of transition discs and normal…
The recently discovered exoplanets in binary or higher-order multiple stellar systems sparked a new interest in the study of proto-planetary discs in stellar aggregations. Here we focus on disc solids, as they make up the reservoir out of…
For grain growth to proceed effectively and lead to planet formation a number of barriers to growth must be overcome. One such barrier, relevant for compact grains in the inner regions of the disc, is the `bouncing barrier' in which large…
I discuss the role that disc fragmentation plays in the formation of gas giant and terrestrial planets, and how this relates to the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, and ultimately to the process of star formation. Protostellar…
We suggest that a high proportion of brown dwarfs are formed by gravitational fragmentation of massive, extended discs around Sun-like stars. We argue that such discs should arise frequently, but should be observed infrequently, precisely…
We show that the growth rate of dust grains in cold molecular clouds is enhanced by the high degree of compressibility of a turbulent, dilute gas. By means of high resolution (10243) numerical simulations, we confirm the theory that the…
The formation of brown dwarfs (BDs) poses a key challenge to star formation theory. The observed dearth of nearby ($\leq 5$ AU) brown dwarf companions to solar-mass stars, known as the brown dwarf desert, as well as the tendency for…
Planet formation in protoplanetary discs requires dust grains to coagulate from the sub-micron sizes that are found in the interstellar medium into much larger objects. For the first time, we study the growth of dust grains during the…
Characterization of the properties of young brown dwarfs are important to constraining the formation of objects at the extreme low-mass end of the IMF. While young brown dwarfs share many properties with solar-mass T Tauri stars,…
Planet formation via core accretion involves the growth of solids that can accumulate to form planetary cores. There are a number of barriers to the collisional growth of solids in protostellar discs, one of which is the drift, or metre,…
Mid-infrared spectra of 65 T Tauri stars (TTS) taken with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on board the Spitzer Space Telescope are modeled using dust at two temperatures to probe the radial variation in dust composition in the uppermost…
The formation of brown dwarfs (BDs) due to the fragmentation of proto-stellar disks undergoing pairwise encounters was investigated. High resolution allowed the use of realistic initial disk models where both the vertical structure and the…
We calculate the evolution of a star-forming cloud core using a three-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamics simulation, treating dust grains as Lagrangian particles, to investigate the dust motion in the early star formation stage. We…
Aims : We want to investigate whether brown dwarfs (BDs) form like stars or are ejected embryos. We study the presence of disks around BDs in the Taurus cloud, and discuss implications for substellar formation models. Methods : We use…
We present a compositional analysis of the 10 micron silicate spectra for brown dwarf disks in the Taurus and Upper Scorpius (UppSco) star-forming regions, using archival Spitzer/IRS observations. A variety in the silicate features is…
This study employed grain dynamic models to examine the density distribution of debris discs, and discussed the effects of the collisional time-intervals of asteroidal bodies, the maximum grain sizes, and the chemical compositions of the…
We model the coagulation and fragmentation of dust grains during the protostellar collapse with our newly developed shark code. It solves the gas-dust hydrodynamics in a spherical geometry and the coagulation/fragmentation equation. It also…
We consider the dynamics of dust and gas during the clearing of protoplanetary discs. We work within the context of a photoevaporation/viscous model for the evolution of the gas disc, and use a two-fluid model to study the dynamics of dust…