Self-Induced Dust Traps Around Snow Lines in Protoplanetary Discs

TL;DR

This paper investigates how snow lines, especially the CO snow line, influence the formation of self-induced dust traps in protoplanetary discs, revealing their role in dust accumulation and growth crucial for planet formation.

Contribution

It provides a parameter study on the effects of snow lines on self-induced dust trap formation, focusing on the CO snow line's impact on dust dynamics.

Findings

Dust traps form at snow lines where dust accumulates and grows.

The CO snow line can act as a starting or braking point for dust growth.

Snow lines influence dust distribution and evolution in protoplanetary discs.

Abstract

Dust particles need to grow efficiently from micrometre sizes to thousands of kilometres to form planets. With the growth of millimetre to meter sizes being hindered by a number of barriers, the recent discovery that dust evolution is able to create `self-induced' dust traps shows promises. The condensation and sublimation of volatile species at certain locations, called snow lines, is also thought to be an important part of planet formation scenarios. Given that dust sticking properties change across a snow line, this raises the question: how do snow lines affect the self-induced dust trap formation mechanism? The question is particularly relevant with the multiple observations of the carbon monoxide (CO) snow line in protoplanetary discs, since its effect on dust growth and dynamics is yet to be understood. In this paper, we present the effects of snow lines in general on the formation of self-induced dust traps in a parameter study, then focus on the CO snow line. We find that for a range of parameters, a dust trap forms at the snow line where the dust accumulates and slowly grows, as found for the water snow line in previous work. We also find that, depending on the grains sticking properties on either side of the CO snow line, it could either be a starting or braking point for dust growth and drift. This could provide clues to understand the link between dust distributions and snow lines in protoplanetary disc observations.