Linear Thermal Instability of a Condensing Gas-Particle Mixture, with Possible Application to Chondrites and Planetesimals

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal instability in a hot gas-particle mixture can lead to clumping and void formation, potentially aiding the formation of chondrites and planetesimals in astrophysical environments.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis of radiation-induced thermal instability in condensing gas-particle mixtures relevant to planetary formation.

Findings

Thermal instability causes clumping and voids in cooling gas.

Instability can promote formation of chondrite parent bodies.

Radiation escape is crucial for particle overdensity cooling.

Abstract

We study the stability of a hot saturated gas coexisting with condensed particles in an optically thin medium. Such a situation may obtain downstream of a shock, at condensation fronts, or in vaporizing impacts. We show that the gas-particle mixture is subject to a thermal instability whereby a region of lower temperature and higher condensate density cools faster to condense faster. If the region of runaway condensation has a sound-crossing time shorter than its cooling time, then it accretes more mass, in gas and particles, from its higher pressure surroundings. Numerical integration of the linearized perturbation equations demonstrates that this radiation-condensation instability can create particle clumps and voids out of a secularly cooling gas. Provided radiation can escape to cool particle overdensities, thermal instability can help assemble chondrite parent bodies out of the vaporized debris of asteroid collisions, and form planetesimals generally.