We investigate the linear growth and vertical structure of the MRI in protoplanetary discs when dust grains are well mixed with the gas over the entire disc thickness. All the grains have the same radius (a = 0.1, 1 or 3 micron) and constitute 1 % of the total mass of the gas. Solutions are obtained at R = 5 and 10 AU for a minimum-mass solar nebula model and different choices of the initially vertical magnetic field strength (B), configuration of the diffusivity tensor and grain sizes. We find that when no grains are present, or they are > 1 micron, the midplane remains magnetically coupled for B up to a few gauss at both radii. In contrast, when a population of small grains (a = 0.1 micron) is present, the disc is magnetically inactive for z/H < 2 and only B < 50 mG couple to the fluid. At 5 AU, Ohmic diffusion dominates for z/H < 1 when B < a few mG, irrespective of the properties of the grain population. Conversely, at 10 AU this diffusion term is unimportant in all the scenarios studied here. For z/H > 5, ambipolar diffusion is severe and prevents the field from coupling to the gas for all B. Hall diffusion is dominant for a wide range of field strengths at both radii when dust grains are present. The growth rate, wavenumber and range of magnetic field strengths for which MRI-unstable modes exist are all drastically diminished when dust grains are present, particularly when they are small (a ~ 0.1 micron). We conclude that in protoplanetary discs, the magnetic field is able to couple to the gas and shear over a wide range of fluid conditions even when small dust grains are well mixed with the gas. Despite the low magnetic coupling, MRI modes grow for an extended range of magnetic field strengths and Hall diffusion largely determines the properties of the perturbations in the inner regions of the disc (abridged).
We investigate where in protoplanetary disks magnetorotational instability operates, which can cause angular momentum transport in the disks. We investigate the spatial distribution of various charged particles and the unstable regions for a variety of models for protoplanetary disks taking into account the recombination of ions and electrons at grain surfaces, which is an important process in most parts of the disks. We find that for all the models there is an inner region which is magnetorotationally stable due to ohmic dissipation. This must make the accretion onto the central star non-stea…
We examine the linear stability of a flow threaded by a weak, vertical magnetic field in a disk with a keplerian rotation profile and a vertical stratification of the ionization degree as that predicted for vast portions of protoplanetary disks. A quasi-global analysis is carried out, where the form of the perturbations in the vertical direction is determined. Considering the ohmic magnetic diffusivity of the gas, the conditions leading to the magnetorotational instability are analyzed as a function of the diffusivity at the disk surfaces, its vertical profile and the strength of the unperturb…
We analyze the ionization state of the magnetohydrodynamically turbulent protoplanetary disks and propose a new mechanism of sustaining ionization. First, we show that in the quasi-steady state of turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability in a typical protoplanetary disk with dust grains, the amount of energy dissipation should be sufficient for providing the ionization energy that is required for activating magnetorotational instability. Second, we show that in the disk with dust grains the energetic electrons that compose electric currents in weakly ionized gas can provide collision…
We measure the turbulent diffusion coefficient of dust grains embedded in magnetorotational turbulence in a protoplanetary disc directly from numerical simulations and compare it to the turbulent viscosity of the flow. The simulations are done in a local coordinate frame comoving with the gas in Keplerian rotation. Periodic boundary conditions are used in all directions, and vertical gravity is not applied to the gas. Using a two-fluid approach, small dust grains of various sizes (with friction times up to $\varOmega_0 τ_{\rm f}=0.02$) are allowed to move under the influence of friction with t…
We investigate the linear growth and vertical structure of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in weakly ionised, stratified accretion discs. The magnetic field is initially vertical and dust grains are assumed to have settled towards the midplane, so charges are carried by electrons and ions only. Solutions are obtained at representative radial locations from the central protostar for different choices of the initial magnetic field strength, sources of ionisation, and disc surface density. The MRI is active over a wide range of magnetic field strengths and fluid conditions in low conducti…
By performing local three-dimensional MHD simulations of stratified accretion disks, we investigate disk winds driven by MHD turbulence. Initially given weak vertical magnetic fields are effectively amplified by magnetorotational instability and winding due to differential rotation. Large scale channel flows develop most effectively at 1.5 - 2 times the scale heights where the magnetic pressure is comparable to but slightly smaller than the gas pressure. The breakup of these channel flows drives structured disk winds by transporting the Poynting flux to the gas. These features are universally …
We study the effect of an imposed vertical magnetic field on the turbulent mass diffusion properties of magnetorotational turbulence in protoplanetary discs. It is well-known that the effective viscosity generated by the turbulence depends strongly on the magnitude of such an external field. In this letter we show that the turbulent diffusion of the flow also grows, but that the diffusion coefficient does not rise with increasing vertical field as fast as the viscosity does. The vertical Schmidt number, i.e. the ratio between viscosity and vertical diffusion, can be close to 20 for high field …
We critically examine the best lines of evidence for grain growth in protoplanetary disks, based on modelling of observed spectral energy distributions and images of T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars. The data are consistent with millimeter-sized grains near disk midplanes, and micron-sized grains near disk surfaces. We review three channels by which grains can grow, including direct condensation from the vapor phase, grain-grain collisional sticking, and gravitational instability. The utility of dust in identifying as yet unseen extrasolar planets is highlighted.
We study magnetic field steepening due to ambipolar diffusion (Brandenburg & Zweibel 1994) in protoplanetary disk environments and draw the following conclusions. Current sheets are generated in magnetically active regions of the disk where the ionization fraction is high enough for the magnetorotational instability to operate. In late stages of solar nebula evolution, the surface density is expected to have lowered and dust grains to have gravitationally settled to the midplane. If the local dust-to-gas mass ratio near the midplane is increased above cosmic abundances by factors > 10^3, curre…
We examine the ability of stellar X-rays to desorb molecules from grains in outer protoplanetary disks. In particular, we consider the possibility of spot heating by X-rays and examine its effectiveness, compared to whole grain heating by X-rays, in sustaining a gas phase abundance of CO. As found in previous studies, whole grain heating is effective only for small grains (< 500 A). As a result, large grains are a permanent sink of CO and whole grain heating cannot sustain an equilibrium gas phase abundance of CO. Spot heating, in which the incident X-ray deposits energy in only a restricted r…
We show that grains have grown to ~mm size (sand sized) or larger in the terrestrial zone (within ~3 AU) of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the 3 Myr old binary star KH 15D. We also argue that the reflected light in the system reaches us by back scattering off the far side of the same ring whose near side causes the obscuration.
We present the first results of the treatment of grain growth in our 3D, two-fluid (gas+dust) SPH code describing protoplanetary disks. We implement a scheme able to reproduce the variation of grain sizes caused by a variety of physical processes and test it with the analytical expression of grain growth given by Stepinski & Valageas (1997) in simulations of a typical T Tauri disk around a one solar mass star. The results are in agreement with a turbulent growing process and validate the method. We are now able to simulate the grain growth process in a protoplanetary disk given by a more reali…
We present the first results of the treatment of grain growth in our 3D, two-fluid (gas+dust) SPH code describing protoplanetary disks. We implement a scheme able to reproduce the variation of grain sizes caused by a variety of physical processes and test it with the analytical expression of grain growth given by Stepinski & Valageas (1997) in simulations of a typical T Tauri disk around a one solar mass star. The results are in agreement with a turbulent growing process and validate the method. We are now able to simulate the grain growth process in a protoplanetary disk given by a more reali…
Previous models of dust growth in protoplanetary disks considered either uniformly laminar or turbulent disks. This Letter explores how dust growth occurs in a layered protoplanetary disk in which the magnetorotational instability generates turbulence only in the surface layers of a disk. Two cases are considered: a completely laminar dead zone and a dead zone in which turbulence is ``stirred up'' from the MRI acting above. It is found that dust is depleted from high altitudes in layered disks faster than in those cases of a uniformly laminar or turblent disks. This is a result of the accelera…
Astronomical observations of flares from analogs of the early Sun have the potential to give critical insights into the high energy irradiation environment of protoplanetary disks. Solar-mass young stellar objects are significantly more X-ray luminous than the typical low-mass T Tauri star. They undergo frequent strong flaring on a several day time scale. Very powerful flares also occur, but on a longer time frame. The hard X-ray spectrum of these stars become even harder during flaring. The X-rays from these sun-like young stellar objects have the potential to ionize circumstellar material ou…
Aims: We wish to investigate what the effect of dust sedimentation is on the observed 10 mum feature of protoplanetary disks and how this may affect the interpretation of the observations. Methods: Using a combination of modeling tools, we simulated the sedimentation of a dust grain size distribution in an axisymmetric 2-D model of a turbulent protoplanetary disk, and we used a radiative transfer program to compute the resulting spectra. Results: We find that the sedimentation can turn a flat feature into a pointy one, but only to a limited degree and for a very limited set of particle size di…
The effect of the Hall term on the evolution of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in weakly ionized accretion disks is investigated using local axisymmetric simulations. First, we show that the Hall term has important effects on the MRI when the temperature and density in the disk is below a few thousand K and between 10^13 and 10^18 cm^{-3} respectively. Such conditions can occur in the quiescent phase of dwarf nova disks, or in the inner part (inside 10 - 100 AU) of protoplanetary disks. When the Hall term is important, the properties of the MRI are dependent on the direction of the ma…
Accretion disks in which angular momentum transport is dominated by the magnetorotational instability (MRI) can also possess additional, purely hydrodynamic, drivers of turbulence. Even when the hydrodynamic processes, on their own, generate negligible levels of transport, they may still affect the evolution of the disk via their influence on the MRI. Here, we study the interaction between the MRI and hydrodynamic turbulence using local MRI simulations that include hydrodynamic forcing. As expected, we find that hydrodynamic forcing is generally negligible if it yields a saturated kinetic ener…
Aims: In order to understand the first stages of planet formation, when tiny grains aggregate to form planetesimals, one needs to simultaneously model grain growth, vertical settling and radial migration of dust in protoplanetary disks. In this study, we implement an analytical prescription for grain growth into a 3D two-phase hydrodynamics code to understand its effects on the dust distribution in disks. Methods: Following the analytic derivation of Stepinski & Valageas (1997), which assumes that grains stick perfectly upon collision, we implement a convenient and fast method of following gra…
We have computed the size distribution of silicate grains in the outer radiative region of the envelope of a protoplanet evolving according to the scenario of Pollack et al. (1996). Our computation includes grain growth due to Brownian motion and overtake of smaller grains by larger ones. We also include the input of new grains due to the breakup of planetesimals in the atmosphere. We follow the procedure of Podolak (2003), but have speeded it up significantly. This allows us to test the sensitivity of the code to various parameters. We have also made a more careful estimate of the resulting g…
We model the process of dust coagulation in protoplanetary disks and calculate how it affects their observational appearance. Our model involves the detailed solution of the coagulation equation at every location in the disk. At regular time intervals we feed the resulting 3-D dust distribution functions into a continuum radiative transfer code to obtain spectral energy distributions. We find that, even if only the very basic -- and well understood -- coagulation mechanisms are included, the process of grain growth is much too quick to be consistent with infrared observations of T Tauri disks.…
We report spatially resolved 11.8 micron images, obtained at the W. M. Keck 10 m telescope, of the protoplanetary disk around the pre--main-sequence star HK Tau B. The mid-infrared morphology and astrometry of HK Tau B with respect to HK Tau A indicate that the flux observed in the mid-infrared from HK Tau B has been scattered off the upper surface of its nearly edge-on disk. This is the first example of a protoplanetary disk observed in scattered light at mid-infrared wavelengths. Monte Carlo simulations of this disk show that the extent (FWHM =0."5, or 70 AU) of the scattered light nebula in…
Observational studies show that the probability of finding gas giant planets around a star increases with the star's metallicity. Our latest simulations of disks undergoing gravitational instabilities (GIs) with realistic radiative cooling indicate that protoplanetary disks with lower metallicity generally cool faster and thus show stronger overall GI-activity. More importantly, the global cooling times in our simulations are too long for disk fragmentation to occur, and the disks do not fragment into dense protoplanetary clumps. Our results suggest that direct gas giant planet formation via d…
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 high probabilities of sticking in low-velocity collisions that may be brought about in a number of ways in protoplanetary disks. Laboratory experiments have measured sticking coefficients for some materials largely confirming the calculations. Although the detailed velocity fields of disks are not well understood, many of the important processes leading to …
We present the results of a three dimensional, locally isothermal, non-self-gravitating SPH code which models protoplanetary disks with two fluids: gas and dust. We ran simulations of a 1 Msun star surrounded by a 0.01 Msun disk comprising 99% gas and 1% dust in mass and extending from 0.5 to ~300 AU. The grain size ranges from 0.001 mm to 10 m for the low resolution (~25 000 SPH particles) simulations and from 0.1 mm to 10 cm for the high resolution (~160 000 SPH particles) simulations. Dust grains are slowed down by the sub-Keplerian gas and lose angular momentum, forcing them to migrate tow…
(Abridged) In this paper we have used the RIEMANN code for computational astrophysics to study the interaction of a realistic distribution of dust grains with gas in a vertically stratified protostellar accretion disc. The disc was modeled to have the density and temperature of a minimum mass solar nebula, and was driven to a fully-developed turbulence via the magnetorotational instability (MRI). We find that the inclusion of standard dust to gas ratios does not have any significant effect on the MRI even when the dust sediments to the midplane of the accretion disc. The density distribution o…
Millimeter interferometry provides evidence for the presence of mm to cm size "pebbles" in the outer parts of disks around pre-main-sequence stars. The observations suggest that large grains are produced relatively early in disk evolution (< 1 Myr) and remain at large radii for longer periods of time (5 to 10 Myr). Simple theoretical estimates of the radial drift time of solid particles, however, imply that they would drift inward over a time scale of less than 0.1 Myr. In this paper, we address this conflict between theory and observation, using more detailed theoretical models, including the…
The first challenge in the formation of both terrestrial planets and the cores of gas giants is the retention of grains in protoplanetary disks. In most regions of these disks, gas attains sub-Keplerian speeds as a consequence of a negative pressure gradient. Hydrodynamic drag leads to orbital decay and depletion of the solid material in the disk, with characteristic timescales as short as only a few hundred years for meter-sized objects at 1 AU. In this paper, we suggest a particle retention mechanism which promotes the accumulation of grains and the formation of planetesimals near the water …
We present the results of three-dimensional numerical simulations that include the effects of hydrodynamical forces and gas drag upon an evolving dusty gas disk. We briefly describe a new parallel, two phase numerical code based upon the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique in which the gas and dust phases are represented by two distinct types of particles. We use the code to follow the dynamical evolution of a population of grains in a gaseous protoplanetary disk in order to understand the distribution of grains of different sizes within the disk. Our ``grains'' range from metre to…
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 grains as the gas disc is cleared. Small (<~10um) grains remain well-coupled to the gas, but larger (~1mm) grains are subject to inward migration from large radii (~50AU), suggesting that the time-scale for grain growth in the outer disc is ~10^4-10^5yr. We describe in detail the observable appearance of discs during clearing, and find that pressure gradient…
We perform numerical simulations of solid particle motion in a shearing box model of a protoplanetary disc. The accretion flow is turbulent due to the action of the magnetorotational instability. Aerodynamic drag on the particles is modelled using the Epstein law with the gas velocity interpolated to the particle position. The effect of the magnetohydrodynamic turbulence on particle velocity dispersions is quantified for solids of different stopping times t_s, or equivalently, different sizes. The anisotropy of the turbulence is reflected upon the dispersions of the particle velocity component…
We study the effect of an imposed magnetic field on the motion of charged dust particles in magnetically active regions of a protoplanetary disc. Assuming a power law structure for the vertical and the toroidal components of the magnetic field for the regions beyond magnetically dead region of the disc, the radial and the vertical velocities of the charged particles, in the asymptotic case of small particles, are calculated analytically. While grains with radii smaller than a critical radius significantly are affected by the magnetic force, motion of the particles with larger radii is independ…
Context. Recent observations of the X-ray emission from T Tauri stars in the Orion nebula have shown that they undergo frequent outbursts in their X-ray luminosity. These X-ray flares are characterised by increases in luminosity by two orders of magnitude, a typical duration of less than one day, and a significant hardening of the X-ray spectrum. Aims. It is unknown what effect these X-ray flares will have on the ionisation fraction and dead-zone structure in protoplanetary disks. We present the results of calculations designed to address this question. Methods. We have performed calculations …
Dust growth and settling considerably affect the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of protoplanetary disks. We investigated dust growth and settling in protoplanetary disks through numerical simulations to examine time-evolution of the disk optical thickness and SEDs. In the present paper, we considered laminar disks as a first step of a series of papers. As a result of dust growth and settling, a dust layer forms around the mid-plane of a gaseous disk. After the formation of the dust layer, small dust grains remain floating above the layer. Although the surface density of the floating smal…
The temperature in the optically thick interior of protoplanetary discs is essential for the interpretation of millimeter observations of the discs, for the vertical structure of the discs, for models of the disc evolution and the planet formation, and for the chemistry in the discs. Since large icy grains have a large albedo even in the infrared, the effect of scattering of the diffuse radiation in the discs on the interior temperature should be examined. We have performed a series of numerical radiation transfer simulations including isotropic scattering by grains with various typical sizes …
Mid-infrared spectra of 65 T Tauri stars (TTS) taken with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on board the Spitzer Space Telescope are modeled using dust at two temperatures to probe the radial variation in dust composition in the uppermost layers of protoplanetary disks. Most spectra indicating crystalline silicates require Mg-rich minerals and silica, but a few suggest otherwise. Spectra indicating abundant enstatite at higher temperatures also require crystalline silicates at temperatures lower than those required for spectra showing high abundance of other crystalline silicates. A few spectra …
Magnetic fields likely play a key role in the dynamics and evolution of protoplanetary discs. They have the potential to efficiently transport angular momentum by MHD turbulence or via the magnetocentrifugal acceleration of outflows from the disk surface, and magnetically-driven mixing has implications for disk chemistry and evolution of the grain population. However, the weak ionisation of protoplanetary discs means that magnetic fields may not be able to effectively couple to the matter. I present calculations of the ionisation equilibrium and magnetic diffusivity as a function of height fro…
Solid particles with the composition of interstellar dust and power-law size distribution dn/da propto a^{-p} for a < a_max with a_{max} > 3 lambda and 3 < p < 4 will have submm opacity spectral index beta(lambda) = dln(kappa)/dln(nu) approx (p-3) beta_{ism}, where beta_{ism} approx 1.7 is the opacity spectral index of interstellar dust material in the Rayleigh limit. For the power-law index p approx 3.5 that characterizes interstellar dust, and that appears likely for particles growing by agglomeration in protoplanetary disks, grain growth to sizes a > 3 mm will result in beta(1 mm) < ~1. Gra…
We calculate the physical structure of protoplanetary disks by evaluating the gas density and temperature self-consistently and solving separately for the dust temperature. The effect of grain growth is taken into account by assuming a power-law size distribution and varying the maximum radius of grains a_max. In our fiducial model with a_max=10um, the gas is warmer than the dust in the surface layer of the disk, while the gas and dust have the same temperature in deeper layers. In the models with larger a_max, the gas temperature in the surface layer is lower than in the fiducial model becaus…