Particle fragmentation inside planet-induced spiral waves

TL;DR

This study investigates how planet-induced spiral waves in protoplanetary disks influence particle trajectories and collisions, revealing that such waves significantly increase collisional velocities, potentially affecting planet formation processes.

Contribution

The paper provides the first detailed analysis of particle dynamics within spiral waves caused by planets, highlighting their role in enhancing collision velocities and influencing disk evolution.

Findings

Collisional velocities within spiral waves exceed fragmentation thresholds.

Particle trajectories are significantly bent at spiral wave locations.

Enhanced collisions could lead to smaller particles near planets.

Abstract

Growing planets interact with their surrounding protoplanetary disk, generating feedback effects that may promote or suppress nearby planet formation. We study how spiral waves launched by planets affect the motion and collisional evolution of particles in the disk. To this end, we perform local 2D hydrodynamical simulations that include a gap-opening planet and integrate particle trajectories within the gas field. Our results show that particle trajectories bend at the location of the spiral wave, and collisions occurring within the spiral exhibit significantly enhanced collisional velocities compared to elsewhere. To quantify this effect, we ran simulations with varying planetary masses and particle sizes. The resulting collisional velocities within the spiral far exceed the typical fragmentation threshold, even for collisions between particles of relatively similar sizes and for planetary masses below the pebble isolation mass. If collisions within the spiral are frequent, this effect could lead to progressively smaller particle sizes as the radial distance from the planet decreases, impacting processes such as gap filtering, pebble accretion, and planetesimal formation.