Related papers: Initial mass function of planetesimals formed by t…
The origin of planetesimals ($\sim$100 km planet building blocks) has confounded astronomers for decades, as numerous growth barriers appear to impede their formation. In a recent paper we proposed a novel interaction where the streaming…
The formation of planetesimals from cm-sized pebbles in protoplanetary disks faces significant barriers, including fragmentation and radial drift. We identify a previously unaccounted screening force, arising from mutual shielding of…
Planets are built from planetesimals: solids larger than a kilometer which grow by colliding pairwise. Planetesimals themselves are unlikely to form by two-body collisions; sub-km objects have gravitational fields individually too weak, and…
We have initiated a large project on identifying the requirements for developing a realistic and ground-up approach to simulating the formation of terrestrial planets in our solar system. As the first phase of this project, we present here…
Solid particles in protoplanetary disks that are sufficiently super-solar in metallicity overcome turbulence generated by vertical shear to gravitationally condense into planetesimals. Super-solar metallicities result if solid particles…
The resonant perturbations from planets are able to halt the drag-induced migration, and capture the inwardly drifting planetesimals into mean motion resonances. The equilibrium eccentricity of planetesimals in resonances, and the minimum…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
Forming planetesimals from pebbles is a major challenge in our current understanding of planet formation. In a protoplanetary disk, pebbles drift inward near the disk midplane via gas drag and they may enter a dead zone. In this context, we…
In models of planetary accretion, pebbles form by dust coagulation and rapidly migrate toward the central star. Planetesimals may continuously form from pebbles over the age of the protoplanetary disk by yet uncertain mechanisms. Meanwhile,…
This chapter highlights the properties of turbulence and meso-scale flow structures in protoplanetary disks and their role in the planet formation process. Here we focus on the formation of planetesimals from a gravitational collapse of a…
Planet formation via core accretion requires the production of km-sized planetesimals from cosmic dust. This process must overcome barriers to simple collisional growth, for which the Streaming Instability (SI) is often invoked. Dust…
The journey from dust particle to planetesimal involves physical processes acting on scales ranging from micrometers (the sticking and restructuring of aggregates) to hundreds of astronomical units (the size of the turbulent protoplanetary…
The streaming instability (SI) is currently the leading candidate for triggering planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks. Recently, a novel variation, the `azimuthal-drift' streaming instability (AdSI), was discovered in disks…
The formation of planetesimals via the streaming instability (SI) is a crucial step in planet formation, yet its triggering conditions and efficiency are highly sensitive to both disk properties and specific evolutionary processes. We aim…
We present high-resolution computer simulations of dust dynamics and planetesimal formation in turbulence generated by the magnetorotational instability. We show that the turbulent viscosity associated with magnetorotational turbulence in a…
The past decade has seen major progress in our understanding of terrestrial planet formation. Yet key questions remain. In this review we first address the growth of 100 km-scale planetesimals as a consequence of dust coagulation and…
Recent observations from NASA's Kepler mission detected the first planets in circumbinary orbits. The question we try to answer is where these planets formed in the circumbinary disk and how far inside they migrated to reach their present…
The main hurdle of planet formation theory is the metre-scale barrier. One of the most promising ways to overcome it is via the streaming instability (SI). Unfortunately, the mechanism responsible for the onset of this instability remains…
Models of planetary core growth by either planetesimal or pebble accretion are traditionally disconnected from the models of dust evolution and formation of the first gravitationally-bound planetesimals. The state-of-the-art models…
An unsolved issue in the standard core accretion model for gaseous planet formation is how kilometre-sized planetesimals form from, initially, micron-sized dust grains. Solid growth beyond metre sizes can be difficult both because the…