Related papers: Instability and vertical eccentricity variation in…
We develop an analytic theory to describe spiral density waves propagating in a shearing disc in the weakly nonlinear regime. Such waves are generically found to be excited in simulations of turbulent accretion disks, in particular if said…
We report on laboratory experiments of wave-driven rotating turbulence. A set of wavemakers produces inertial-wave beams that interact nonlinearly in the central region of a water tank mounted on a rotating platform. The forcing thus…
The vertical shear instability and the streaming instability are two robust sources of turbulence in protoplanetary disks. The former has been found to induce anisotropic turbulence that is stronger in the vertical than in the radial…
Protoplanet eccentricities of e >~ H/r can slow or reverse migration, but previous 2D studies have shown that gravitational scattering cannot maintain significant planet eccentricities against disc-induced damping. We simulate the evolution…
The standard equilibrium for radiation-dominated accretion disks has long been known to be viscously, thermally, and convectively unstable, but the nonlinear development of these instabilities---hence the actual state of such disks---has…
We investigate the growth or decay rate of the fundamental mode of even symmetry in a viscous accretion disc. This mode occurs in eccentric discs and is known to be potentially overstable. We determine the vertical structure of the disc and…
We revisit the global modes and instabilities of homogeneous rotating ellipsoidal fluid masses, which are the simplest global models of rotationally and tidally deformed gaseous planets or stars. The tidal flow in a short-period planet may…
Instabilities of fluid flows often generate turbulence. Using extensive direct numerical simulations, we study two-dimensional turbulence driven by a wavenumber-localised instability superposed on stochastic forcing, in contrast to previous…
Discretized numerical simulations are a powerful tool for investigation of nonlinear MHD turbulence in accretion disks. However, confidence in their quantitative predictions requires a demonstration that further refinement of the spatial…
Gravitational instabilities (GIs) are spiral distortions in a self-gravitating disk that appear wherever the local surface density and temperature become favorable for their growth. The restructuring of the disk as it becomes unstable, the…
Spiral shocks are potentially a major source of turbulence in the interstellar medium. To address this problem quantitatively, we use numerical simulations to investigate gas flow across spiral arms in vertically stratified,…
Local linear instability refers to the linearized discrete operator exhibiting perturbation growth exceeding that of the corresponding continuous linearized problem. In the context of nonlinear entropy-stable discretizations, we argue that…
In this paper I develop a nonlinear theory of tightly-wound (highly twisted) eccentric waves in astrophysical discs, based on the averaged Lagrangian method of Whitham. Viscous dissipation is included in the theory by use of a…
This thesis investigates phenomena occurring in black-hole accretion discs which are likely to induce high-frequency quasi-periodic variability. Two classes of pseudo-relativistic theoretical models are studied. The first is based on the…
(abridged) Aims: We present new results exhibiting a subcritical baroclinic instability (SBI) in local shearing box models. We describe the 2D and 3D behaviour of this instability using numerical simulations and we present a simple…
We revisit the global linear theory of the vertical shear instability (VSI) in protoplanetary discs with an imposed radial temperature gradient. We focus on the regime in which the VSI has the form of a travelling inertial wave that grows…
The Accretion-Ejection Instability (AEI) is explored numerically using a global 2d model of the inner region of a magnetised accretion disk. The disk is initially currentless but threaded by an external vertical magnetic field created by…
We find a linear instability of non-axisymmetric Rossby waves in a thin non-magnetized Keplerian disk when there is a local maximum in the radial profile of a key function ${\cal L}(r) \equiv {\cal F}(r) S^{2/\Gamma}(r)$, where ${\cal…
The prevalence and consequences of convection perpendicular to the plane of accretion discs have been discussed for several decades. Recent simulations combining convection and the magnetorotational instability have given fresh impetus to…
We study the rotational dynamics of {\it inertial} disks and rods in three-dimensional, homogeneous isotropic turbulence. In particular, we show how the alignment and the decorrelation time-scales of such spheroids depend, critically, on…