The accumulation and trapping of grains at planet gaps: effects of grain growth and fragmentation

TL;DR

This paper models dust evolution in protoplanetary disks, focusing on how grain growth and fragmentation influence dust accumulation at planet-induced gaps, with implications for ALMA observations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive 3D SPH simulation of dust growth and fragmentation effects on dust distribution near planet gaps in disks.

Findings

Grain growth is rapid in accumulation zones around gaps.

Fragmentation significantly influences dust distribution.

Results impact the interpretation of ALMA observations of disks.

Abstract

We model the dust evolution in protoplanetary disks with full 3D, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), two-phase (gas+dust) hydrodynamical simulations. The gas+dust dynamics, where aerodynamic drag leads to the vertical settling and radial migration of grains, is consistently treated. In a previous work, we characterized the spatial distribution of non-growing dust grains of different sizes in a disk containing a gap-opening planet and investigated the gap's detectability with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Here we take into account the effects of grain growth and fragmentation and study their impact on the distribution of solids in the disk. We show that rapid grain growth in the two accumulation zones around planet gaps is strongly affected by fragmentation. We discuss the consequences for ALMA observations.