Ring Morphology with Dust Coagulation in Protoplanetary Disks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dust coagulation influences the formation and morphology of dust rings in protoplanetary disks, revealing that coagulation can hinder inner ring formation and cause grain buildup at the disk's outer edge.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive 2D hydrodynamical simulation including dust coagulation, highlighting its effects on dust dynamics and ring structures in protoplanetary disks.

Findings

Dust coagulation accelerates radial drift, impeding inner ring formation.

A buildup of sub-mm grains occurs at the outer disk edge.

Fast gap opening by planets can mitigate coagulation effects.

Abstract

Tidal interactions between the embedded planets and their surrounding protoplanetary disks are often postulated to produce the observed complex dust substructures, including rings, gaps, and asymmetries. In this Letter, we explore the consequences of dust coagulation on the dust dynamics and ring morphology. Coagulation of dust grains leads to dust size growth which, under typical disk conditions, produces faster radial drifts, potentially threatening the dust ring formation. Utilizing 2D hydrodynamical simulations of protoplanetary disks which include a full treatment of dust coagulation, we find that if the planet does not open a gap quickly enough, the formation of an inner ring is impeded due to dust coagulation and subsequent radial drift. Furthermore, we find that a "buildup" of sub-mm sized grains often appears in the dust emission at the outer edge of the dust disk.