Related papers: Dust growth and planet formation by disc fragmenta…
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…
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…
A large fraction of brown dwarfs and low-mass H-burning stars may form by gravitational fragmentation of protostellar discs. We explore the conditions for disc fragmentation and we find that they are satisfied when a disc is large enough…
Context: Around 30 per cent of the observed exoplanets that orbit M dwarf stars are gas giants that are more massive than Jupiter. These planets are prime candidates for formation by disc instability. Aims: We want to determine the…
It is difficult to imagine a planet formation model that does not at some stage include a gravitationally unstable disc. Initially unstable gas-dust discs may form planets directly, but the high surface density required has motivated the…
Circumstellar discs likely have a short window when they are self-gravitating and prone to the effects of disc instability, but during this time the seeds of planet formation can be sown. It has long been argued that disc fragmentation can…
Grain growth and fragmentation are important processes in building up large dust aggregates in protoplanetary discs. Using a 3D two-phase (gas-dust) SPH code, we investigate the combined effects of growth and fragmentation of a multi-phase…
We run numerical simulations to study the accretion of gas and dust grains onto gas giant planets embedded into massive protoplanetary discs. The outcome is found to depend on the disc cooling rate, planet mass, grain size and irradiative…
Dust constitutes only about one percent of the mass of circumstellar disks, yet it is of crucial importance for the modeling of planet formation, disk chemistry, radiative transfer and observations. The initial growth of dust from…
Recent research on the buildup of rocks from small dust grains has reaffirmed that grain growth in protoplanetary disks should occur quickly. Calculation of growth rates have been made for a variety of growth processes and generally predict…
Dust trapping in the global pressure bump induced by magnetospheric truncation offers a promising formation mechanism for close-in super-Earths/sub-Neptunes. These planets likely form in evolved protoplanetary discs, where the gas…
We carry out global three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical simulations of self-gravitating accretion discs to determine if, and under what conditions, a disc may fragment to form giant planets. We explore the parameter space (in terms…
Radially compact protoplanetary discs (<=50 au) are ubiquitous in nearby star-forming regions. Multiple mechanisms have been invoked to interpret various compact discs. In this paper, we propose that fragmentation of fragile dust grains in…
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,…
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…
We investigate how a protoplanetary disc's susceptibility to gravitational instabilities and fragmentation depends on the mass of its host star. We use 1D disc models in conjunction with 3D SPH simulations to determine the critical…
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…
Context. Current models of the size- and radial evolution of dust in protoplanetary disks generally oversimplify either the radial evolution of the disk (by focussing at one single radius or by using steady state disk models) or they assume…
Gravitational fragmentation has been proposed as a mechanism for the formation of giant planets in close orbits around solar-type stars. However, it is debatable whether this mechanism can function in the inner regions (R<40 AU) of real…
Context.Transition disks are believed to be the final stages of protoplanetary disks, during which a forming planetary system or photoevaporation processes open a gap in the inner disk, drastically changing the disk structure. From…