An analytical model for the evolution of the protoplanetary discs

TL;DR

This paper presents new analytical solutions for the evolution of self-gravitating protoplanetary discs, focusing on accretion rates and snow line migration in optically thick and thin regimes, aiding understanding of early and late disc phases.

Contribution

It introduces analytical models assuming constant Toomre parameter and derives accretion and snow line evolution, extending prior numerical work with explicit solutions.

Findings

Accretion rate decays as a power-law with system age (-0.75 and -1.04).

Snow line moves inward over time with different rates in optically thick and thin discs.

In optically thin discs, the snow line migrates faster inward than in optically thick discs.

Abstract

We obtain a new set of analytical solutions for the evolution of a self-gravitating accretion disc by holding the Toomre parameter close to its threshold, and obtaining the stress parameter from the cooling rate. In agreement with the previous numerical solutions, furthermore, the accretion rate is assumed to be independent of the disc radius. Extreme situations where the entire disc is either optically thick or optically thin are studied independently and the obtained solutions can be used for exploring the early or the final phases of a protoplanetary disc evolution. Our solutions exhibit decay of the accretion rate as a power-law function of the age of the system with the exponent -0.75 and -1.04 for optically thick and thin cases, respectively. Our calculations permit us to explore evolution of the snow line analytically. Location of the snow line in the optically thick regime evolves as a power-law function of time with the exponent -0.16, however, when the disc is optically thin, location of the snow line as a function of time with the exponent -0.7 has a stronger dependence on time. It means that in an optically thin disc inward migration of the snow line is faster than an optically thick disc.