Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Oct 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999icar..141..388k&link_type=abstract
Icarus, Volume 141, Issue Icarus, pp. 388-398.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
54
Scientific paper
In this paper we investigate the Brownian stage of dust growth in the cold part of a protoplanetary disc around a young stellar object. The growth due to diffusive particle motion is simulated numerically by a new N-particle method. In contrast to earlier studies the dust growth was investigated at astrophysically relevant small number densities. We found that the friction time of the grains scales with the fifth root of the particle radius although the average fractal dimension of the growing grains is smaller than two. The distribution of fractal dimension is very broad and about 10% of the dust grains have fractal dimensions larger than two. Nevertheless, the determined time scales of the pure Brownian dust growth are much too large for explaining the formation of planets within the lifetime of a protoplanetary disc. Our numerical results indicate that at very low number densities the Smoluchowski theory is not applicable for the description of the growth process. The reason might be that at low number densities spatial density fluctuations of the dust grains start to strongly influence the growth process.
Henning Thomas K.
Kempf Sascha
Pfalzner Susanne
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