Related papers: Observations of Protoplanetary Disk Structures
Recent spatially-resolved observations of protoplanetary disks revealed a plethora of substructures, including concentric rings and gaps, inner cavities, misalignments, spiral arms, and azimuthal asymmetries. This is the major breakthrough…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the birth sights of planetary systems like our own. Disks represent the gaseous dusty matter left after the formation of their central stars. The mass and luminosity of the star, initial disk mass…
Planet formation models rely on knowledge of the physical conditions and evolutionary processes in protoplanetary disks, in particular the grain size distribution and dust growth timescales. In theoretical models, several barriers exist…
Protoplanetary disks are thought to be the birth places of planetary systems. The formation and the subsequent evolution of protoplanetary disks are regulated by the star formation process, which begins with the collapse of a cloud core to…
Protoplanetary disks are the sites of planet formation, and the evolution and eventual dispersal of these disks strongly influences the formation of planetary systems. Disk evolution during the planet-forming epoch is driven by accretion…
Flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of AU are found around almost all low mass stars shortly after their birth. These disks generally persist for several Myr, during which time some material…
Recent observations have suggested that circumstellar disks may commonly form around young stellar objects. Although the formation of circumstellar disks can be a natural result of the conservation of angular momentum in the parent cloud,…
Our understanding of protoplanetary disks has greatly improved over the last decade due to a wealth of data from new facilities. Unbiased dust surveys with Spitzer leave us with good constraints on the dust dispersal timescale of small…
This review introduces physical processes in protoplanetary disks relevant to accretion and the initial stages of planet formation. After a brief overview of the observational context, I introduce the elementary theory of disk structure and…
Planets are a natural byproduct of the stellar formation process, resulting from local aggregations of material within the disks surrounding young stars. Whereas signatures of gas-giant planets at large orbital separations have been…
In the past decade, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has revealed a plethora of substructures in the disks surrounding young stars. These substructures have several proposed formation mechanisms, with one leading…
Planets form in disks of gas and dust around young stars. The disk molecular reservoirs and their chemical evolution affect all aspects of planet formation, from the coagulation of dust grains into pebbles, to the elemental and molecular…
Understanding the origin of the astonishing diversity of exoplanets is a key question for the coming decades. ALMA has revolutionized our view of the dust emission from protoplanetary disks, demonstrating the prevalence of ring and spiral…
Recent ALMA molecular line observations have revealed 3-D gas velocity structure in protoplanetary disks, shedding light on mechanisms of disk accretion and structure formation. 1) By carrying out viscous simulations, we confirm that the…
Successful exoplanet surveys in the last decade have revealed that planets are ubiquitous throughout the Milky Way, and show a large diversity in mass, location and composition. At the same time, new facilities such as the Atacama Large…
The first steps toward planet formation involve the coagulation of small microscopic grains into larger and larger pebbles and rocks in gas-rich disks around young stars and brown dwarfs. Observations in the sub-millimeter can trace…
The prevalence of substructures in $\sim1-10$ Myr old protoplanetary disks, which are often linked to planet formation, has raised the question of how early such features form, and as a corollary, how early planet formation begins. Here we…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
The spatial distribution of gas and solids in protoplanetary disks determines the composition and formation efficiency of planetary systems. A number of disks show starkly different distributions for the gas and small grains compared to…