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Issue A&A
Volume 474, Number 3, November II 2007
Page(s) 1037 - 1047
Section Planets and planetary systems
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20077586



A&A 474, 1037-1047 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20077586

The effect of a planet on the dust distribution in a 3D protoplanetary disk

L. Fouchet1, 2, S. T. Maddison3, J.-F. Gonzalez1, and J. R. Murray3

1  Université de Lyon, Lyon 69003, Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne 69622, CNRS, UMR 5574, Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France
    e-mail: fouchet@phys.ethz.ch;Jean-Francois.Gonzalez@ens-lyon.fr
2  Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
3  Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
    e-mail: smaddison@swin.edu.au;jmurray@astro.swin.edu.au

(Received 2 April 2007 / Accepted 28 August 2007)

Abstract
Aims. We investigate the behaviour of dust in protoplanetary disks under the action of gas drag in the presence of a planet. Our goal is twofold: to determine the spatial distribution of dust depending on grain size and planet mass, and therefore to provide a framework for interpretation of coming observations and future studies of planetesimal growth.
Methods. We numerically model the evolution of dust in a protoplanetary disk using a two-fluid (gas + dust) Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code, which is non-self-gravitating and locally isothermal. The code follows the three dimensional distribution of dust in a protoplanetary disk as it interacts with the gas via aerodynamic drag. In this work, we present the evolution of a minimum mass solar nebula (MMSN) disk comprising 1% dust by mass in the presence of an embedded planet. We run a series of simulations which vary the grain size and planetary mass to see how they affect the resulting disk structure.
Results.We find that gap formation is much more rapid and striking in the dust layer than in the gaseous disk and that a system with a given stellar, disk and planetary mass will have a completely different appearance depending on the grain size. For low mass planets in our MMSN disk, a gap can open in the dust disk while not in the gas disk. We also note that dust accumulates at the external edge of the planetary gap and speculate that the presence of a planet in the disk may enhance the formation of a second planet by facilitating the growth of planetesimals in this high density region.


Key words: planetary systems: protoplanetary disks -- hydrodynamics -- methods: numerical



© ESO 2007


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