Turbulence In the Outer Regions of Protoplanetary Disks. II. Strong Accretion Driven by a Vertical Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to show that strong vertical magnetic fields in protoplanetary disks significantly enhance accretion rates, aligning with observations, and reveal a transition from turbulence to laminar flow with wind-driven accretion.

Contribution

It demonstrates the critical role of vertical magnetic fields in driving accretion in protoplanetary disks, highlighting the dependence of turbulence and accretion rates on magnetic field strength.

Findings

Accretion rates of 1e-8 to 1e-7 solar masses per year match observations.

Strong vertical magnetic fields suppress MRI turbulence, leading to laminar flow.

Magnetic winds contribute to angular momentum transport.

Abstract

We carry out a series of local, vertically stratified shearing box simulations of protoplanetary disks that include ambipolar diffusion and a net vertical magnetic field. The ambipolar diffusion profiles we employ correspond to 30AU and 100AU in a minimum mass solar nebula (MMSN) disk model, which consists of a far-UV-ionized surface layer and low-ionization disk interior. These simulations serve as a follow up to Simon et al. (2013), in which we found that without a net vertical field, the turbulent stresses that result from the magnetorotational instability (MRI) are too weak to account for observed accretion rates. The simulations in this work show a very strong dependence of the accretion stresses on the strength of the background vertical field; as the field strength increases, the stress amplitude increases. For gas to magnetic pressure ratios of 1e4 and 1e5, we find accretion rates between 1e-8 and 1e-7 solar masses per year. These accretion rates agree with observational constraints, suggesting a vertical magnetic field strength between 60 and 200 microgauss at 30AU and 10 and 30 microgauss at 100AU in a MMSN disk. Furthermore, the stress has a non-negligible component due to a magnetic wind. For sufficiently strong vertical field strengths, MRI turbulence is quenched, and the flow becomes largely laminar, with accretion proceeding through large scale correlations in the radial and toroidal field components as well as through the magnetic wind. In all simulations, the presence of a low ionization region near the disk mid-plane, which we call the ambipolar damping zone, results in reduced stresses there.