Simulations of thermal surface waves in a protoplanetary disk using 1+1D approximation

TL;DR

This study uses a 1+1D numerical model to investigate thermal surface waves in protoplanetary disks, confirming their presence and propagation but noting limited impact on the midplane temperature, highlighting the need for hydrodynamic modeling.

Contribution

It provides detailed numerical evidence of thermal surface wave behavior in protoplanetary disks using a 1+1D approximation, challenging some analytical predictions.

Findings

Surface perturbations propagate towards the star.

Thermal waves mainly affect the disk's upper layers.

Midplane temperature remains largely unaffected.

Abstract

Heating by the central star is one of the key factors determining the physical structure of protoplanetary disks. Due to the large optical thickness in the radial direction, disk midplane regions are heated by the infrared radiation from the disk surface (atmosphere), which in turn is directly heated by the star. It was previously shown that interception of the stellar radiation by inhomogeneities on the disk surface can cause perturbations that propagate towards the star. In this work, we investigate the occurrence of such waves within a detailed 1+1D numerical model of the protoplanetary disk. We confirm the previous findings that in the disk, that is optically thick to its own radiation, the surface perturbations indeed occur and propagate towards the star. However, contrary to some analytical predictions, the thermal waves in sufficiently massive disks affect only the upper layers without significant fluctuations of temperature in the midplane. Our results indicate the need to study this instability within more consistent hydrodynamic models.