A systematic description of wind-driven protoplanetary discs

TL;DR

This paper systematically explores wind-driven protoplanetary discs, deriving scaling laws and solutions that help understand accretion processes driven by magnetized winds in weakly turbulent regions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive set of self-similar wind solutions and scaling laws for magnetized protoplanetary discs, facilitating simplified modeling and interpretation of observations.

Findings

Self-similar solutions obtained for plasma beta from 10^2 to 10^8.

Mass accretion rates around 10^{-8} Msun/yr at 10 AU with specific magnetic field strengths.

Magnetic lever arms typically less than 2, reaching 1.5 in weak field cases.

Abstract

(shortened) Planet forming discs are believed to be very weakly turbulent in the regions outside of 1 AU. For this reason, it is now believed that magnetized winds could be the dominant mechanism driving accretion in these systems. However, there is today no self-consistent way to describe discs subject to a magnetized wind, in a way similar to the $\alpha$ disc model. In this article, I explore in a systematic way the parameter space of wind-driven protoplanetary discs and present scaling laws which can be used in reduced models \`a la alpha-disc. Methods: I compute a series of self-similar wind solutions, assuming the disc is dominated by ambipolar and Ohmic diffusions. These solution are obtained by looking for stationary solutions in the finite-volume code PLUTO using a relaxation method and continuation. Results: Self-similar solutions are obtained for values of plasma beta ranging from 10^2 to 10^8, for several Ohmic and ambipolar diffusion strengths. Mass accretions rates of the order of 10^{-8} Msun/yr are obtained for poloidal field strength beta=O(10^4) or equivalently 1 mG at 10 AU. The resulting magnetic lever arms are typically lower than 2, possibly reaching 1.5 in weakest field cases. Finally, I provide a complete set of scaling laws and semi-analytical wind solutions, which can be used to fit and interpret observations. Conclusions: Magnetized winds are unavoidable in protoplanetary discs as soon as they are embedded in an ambient poloidal magnetic field. Very detailed disc microphysics are not always needed to describe them, and simplified models such as self-similar solutions manage to capture most of the physics seen in full 3D simulations. The remaining difficulty to get a complete theory of wind-driven accretion lies in the transport of the large scale field, which remains poorly constrained and not well understood.