Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 2B087

Enhanced Grain Growth at Planet Gap Edges in Protoplanetary Disks

Gonzalez, Jean-François (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, France)
Laibe, Guillaume (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, UK)
Maddison, Sarah (Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Melbourne, Australia)

Abstract:
We numerically model the evolution of dust in a protoplanetary disk using a 3D, two-phase (gas+dust) smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code. Gas and dust interact via aerodynamic drag and the growth and fragmentation of solid particles is included. We follow the evolution of the dust spatial and size distributions in the disk. In this work, we present the evolution of a typical Classical T Tauri star (CTTS) disk comprising 1% dust by mass, which is gravitationnally affected by an embedded planet of 5 M_Jup orbiting at 40 AU. We find that particles grow most efficiently in the high density regions at the gap edges where dust accumulates and investigate the influence of the fragmentation velocity. Gap edges appear as potential sites for the formation of additional planets.

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