No Arabic abstract
The Rosseland mean opacity of dust in protoplanetary disks is often calculated assuming the interstellar medium (ISM) size distribution and a constant dust-to-gas ratio. However, the dust size distribution and the dust-to-gas ratio in protoplanetary disks are distinct from those of the ISM. Here, we use simple dust evolution models that incorporate grain growth and transport to calculate the time evolution of mean opacity of dust grains as a function of distance from the star. Dust dynamics and size distribution are sensitive to the assumed value of the turbulence strength $alpha_{rm t}$ and the velocity at which grains fragment $v_{rm frag}$. For moderate-to-low turbulence strengths of $alpha_{rm t} lesssim 10^{-3}$ and substantial differences in $v_{rm frag}$ for icy and ice-free grains, we find a spatially non-uniform dust-to-gas ratio and grain size distribution that deviate significantly from the ISM values, in agreement with previous studies. The effect of a non-uniform dust-to-gas ratio on the Rosseland mean opacity dominates over that of the size distribution. This spatially varying -- that is non-monotonic -- dust-to-gas ratio creates a region in the protoplanetary disk that is optimal for producing hydrogen-rich planets, potentially explaining the apparent peak in gas giant planet occurrence rate at intermediate distances. The enhanced dust-to-gas ratio within the ice line also suppresses gas accretion rates onto sub-Neptune cores, thus stifling their tendency to undergo runaway gas accretion within disk lifetimes. Finally, our work corroborates the idea that low mass cores with large primordial gaseous envelopes (`super-puffs) originate beyond the ice line.
The amount of dust present in circumstellar disks is expected to steadily decrease with age due to the growth from micron-sized particles to planetesimals and planets. Mature circumstellar disks, however, can be observed to contain significant amounts of dust and possess high dust-to-gas ratios. Using HD 163296 as our case study, we explore how the formation of giant planets in disks can create the conditions for collisionally rejuvenating the dust population, halting or reversing the expected trend. We combine N-body simulations with statistical methods and impact scaling laws to estimate the dynamical and collisional excitation of the planetesimals due to the formation of HD 163296s giant planets. We show that this process creates a violent collisional environment across the disk that can inject collisionally produced second-generation dust into it, significantly contributing to the observed dust-to-gas ratio. The spatial distribution of the dust production can explain the observed local enrichments in HD 163296s inner regions. The results obtained for HD 163296 can be extended to any disk with embedded forming giant planets and may indicate a common evolutionary stage in the life of such circumstellar disks. Furthermore, the dynamical excitation of the planetesimals could result in the release of transient, non-equilibrium gas species like H2O, CO2, NH3 and CO in the disk due to ice sublimation during impacts and, due to the excited planetesimals being supersonic with respect to the gas, could produce bow shocks in the latter that could heat it and cause a broadening of its emission lines.
The characterization of exoplanets and their birth protoplanetary disks has enormously advanced in the last decade. Benefitting from that, our global understanding of the planet formation processes has been substantially improved. In this review, we first summarize the cutting-edge states of the exoplanet and disk observations. We further present a comprehensive panoptic view of modern core accretion planet formation scenarios, including dust growth and radial drift, planetesimal formation by the streaming instability, core growth by planetesimal accretion and pebble accretion. We discuss the key concepts and physical processes in each growth stage and elaborate on the connections between theoretical studies and observational revelations. Finally, we point out the critical questions and future directions of planet formation studies.
We present ALMA observations of the $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ dust continuum and the $mathrm{^{13}CO}~J = 1 - 0$ and $mathrm{C^{18}O}~J = 1 - 0$ line emissions of the protoplanetary disk associated with HD~142527. The $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ continuum shows a strong azimuthal-asymmetric distribution similar to that of the previously reported $336~mathrm{GHz}$ continuum, with a peak emission in dust concentrated region in the north. The disk is optically thin in both the $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ dust continuum and the $mathrm{C^{18}O}~J = 1 - 0$ emissions. We derive the distributions of gas and dust surface densities, $Sigma_mathrm{g}$ and $Sigma_mathrm{d}$, and the dust spectral opacity index, $beta$, in the disk from ALMA Band 3 and Band 7 data. In the analyses, we assume the local thermodynamic equilibrium and the disk temperature to be equal to the peak brightness temperature of $mathrm{^{13}CO}~J = 3 - 2$ with a continuum emission. The gas-to-dust ratio, $mathrm{G/D}$, varies azimuthally with a relation $mathrm{G/D} propto Sigma_mathrm{d}^{-0.53}$, and $beta$ is derived to be $approx 1$ and $approx 1.7$ in the northern and southern regions of the disk, respectively. These results are consistent with the accumulation of larger dust grains in a higher pressure region. In addition, our results show that the peak $Sigma_mathrm{d}$ is located ahead of the peak $Sigma_mathrm{g}$. If the latter corresponds to a vortex of high gas pressure, the results indicate that the dust is trapped ahead of the vortex, as predicted by some theoretical studies.
We aim at determining the spatial distribution of the gas and dust in star-forming regions and address their relative abundances in quantitative terms. We also examine the dust opacity exponent beta for spatial and/or temporal variations. Using mapping observations of the very dense rho Oph A core, we examined standard 1D and non-standard 3D methods to analyse data of far-infrared and submillimeter (submm) continuum radiation. The resulting dust surface density distribution can be compared to that of the gas. The latter was derived from the analysis of accompanying molecular line emission, observed with Herschel from space and with APEX from the ground. As a gas tracer we used N2H+, which is believed to be much less sensitive to freeze-out than CO and its isotopologues. Radiative transfer modelling of the N2H+(J=3-2) and (J=6-5) lines with their hyperfine structure explicitly taken into account provides solutions for the spatial distribution of the column density N(H2), hence the surface density distribution of the gas. The gas-to-dust mass ratio is varying across the map, with very low values in the central regions around the core SM 1. The global average, =88, is not far from the canonical value of 100, however. In rho Oph A, the exponent beta of the power-law description for the dust opacity exhibits a clear dependence on time, with high values of 2 for the envelope-dominated emission in starless Class -1 sources to low values close to 0 for the disk-dominated emission in Class III objects. beta assumes intermediate values for evolutionary classes in between. Since beta is primarily controlled by grain size, grain growth mostly occurs in circumstellar disks. The spatial segregation of gas and dust, seen in projection toward the core centre, probably implies that, like C18O, also N2H+ is frozen onto the grains.
We perform numerical simulations of dusty, supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds. We model 0.1, 1 and 10 {mu}m sized dust grains at an initial dust-to-gas mass ratio of 1:100, solving the equations of combined gas and dust dynamics where the dust is coupled to the gas through a drag term. We show that, for 0.1 and 1 {mu}m grains, the dust-to-gas ratio deviates by typically 10-20% from the mean, since the stopping time of the dust due to gas drag is short compared to the dynamical time. Contrary to previous findings, we find no evidence for orders of magnitude fluctuation in the dust-to-gas ratio for 0.1 {mu}m grains. Larger, 10 {mu}m dust grains may have dust-to-gas ratios increased by up to an order of magnitude locally. Both small (0.1 {mu}m) and large ($gtrsim$ 1 {mu}m) grains trace the large-scale morphology of the gas, however we find evidence for size-sorting of grains, where turbulence preferentially concentrates larger grains into dense regions. Size-sorting may help to explain observations of coreshine from dark clouds, and why extinction laws differ along lines of sight through molecular clouds in the Milky Way compared to the diffuse interstellar medium.