title: High Resolution Simulations of Structure Formation in Turbulent Protoplanetary Disks: A Case Study of the Vertical Shear Instability
creator: Manger, Natascha
subject: 520
subject: 520 Astronomy and allied sciences
description: Disks around young stars are the birth place of planetary systems like our own solar system. Thus, the study of turbulent processes in protoplanetary disks is not only important to understand the transport of angular momentum to explain for example the angular momentum deficit of our own sun, but also to understand how large scale structures emerge, which are recently regularly observed and which also represent a crucial puzzle piece in the understanding of how dust grains can grow into planetesimals via gravoturbulent processes. In this thesis, I conduct high resolution studies of three-dimensional global models of turbulent protoplanetary disks using the magneto-hydrodynamics code PLUTO. I focus my studies on the Vertical Shear Instability (VSI), which has been shown to operate efficiently at disk radii beyond a few AU in typical protoplanetary disks. I show that vortices with radial diameters of  around 1.5 local pressure scale heights and aspect ratios χ > 8 form in VSI turbulent disks and that these vortices can survive more than 500 orbits. The vortices are forming irrespective of the underlying disk density gradient and aspect ratio and can therefore act as pressure traps for small to medium sized particles over a wide range of the disk. I also show evidence that these dusty vortices are compatible with detections of dust concentrations by current sub-mm interferometers. These findings therefore present a crucial puzzle piece which will help the understanding under which conditions and how early after the formation of a disk around a young star planetesimals can form via gravoturbulent planetesimal formation.
date: 2019
type: Dissertation
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/26898/1/thesisMainPdfa_final.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00026898
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-268988
identifier:   Manger, Natascha  (2019) High Resolution Simulations of Structure Formation in Turbulent Protoplanetary Disks: A Case Study of the Vertical Shear Instability.  [Dissertation]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/26898/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng