Eccentric dust ring formation in Kozai-Lidov gas disks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Kozai-Lidov oscillations in misaligned binary star gas disks influence dust distribution, revealing the formation of eccentric dust rings that could impact planet formation processes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Kozai-Lidov oscillations can cause dust to form multiple eccentric rings, a novel insight into dust dynamics in misaligned disks.

Findings

Dust undergoes similar oscillations as gas but with different radial distribution.

Inward radial drift of dust is faster in eccentric disks.

Multiple narrow eccentric dust rings form during high eccentricity phases.

Abstract

A highly misaligned gas disk around one component of a binary star system can undergo global Kozai-Lidov (KL) oscillations for which the disk inclination and eccentricity are exchanged. With hydrodynamical simulations of a gas and dust disk we explore the effects of these oscillations on the dust density distribution. For dust that is marginally coupled to the gas (${\rm St} \approx 1$), we find that the dust undergoes similar dynamical behaviour to the gas disk but the radial distribution of dust may be very different to the gas. The inward radial drift of the dust is faster in an eccentric disk leading to a smaller outer dust disk radius. The dust breaks into multiple narrow eccentric rings during the highly eccentric disk phase. Eccentric dust ring formation may have significant implications for the formation of planets in misaligned disks. We suggest that multiple dust rings may generally occur within gas disks that have sufficiently strong eccentricity peaks at intermediate radii.