Yiqi Wu   (China)

 yiwu @ mpia.de

Self-consistent turbulence and pebble size distribution

 

Planetesimals are the building blocks of asteroids, comets, and planets. Their formation is a complex process: µm-sized dust grains grow into km-sized bodies through collision, coagulation, fragmentation, and gravitational collapse within the turbulent gas of the protoplanetary disk. My project is part of the ERC Advanced Grant Turbulence, Pebbles and Planetesimals(TiPPi), which develops a new type of numerical experiment connecting the different phases of planetesimal formation. Focusing on the earliest stage, I simulate the dynamics of dust particles in a gas disk with self-consistent turbulent fields and first construct a Lagrangian analysis of the turbulence. Then, I measure dust collisional velocities in situ and compare them with analytical predictions, aiming to recover more realistic collision parameters that can feed into coagulation models of dust growth. As the dust grows, the collisional velocities are measured again and this processes will be repeated iteratively to ensure a self-consistent treatment. Local regions of interest would be analyzed first and machine learning tools will be used to extend our domain to the entire disk.

 

Supervisor:    Hubert Klahr   (MPIA)