Modeling Magnetorotational Turbulence in Protoplanetary Disks with Dead Zones

Details Modeling Magnetorotational Turbulence in Protoplanetary Disks with Dead Zones Modeling Magnetorotational Turbulence in Protoplanetary Disks with Dead Zones

2011-08-24

arxiv.org/abs/1108.4892v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

16 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Scientific paper

Turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability (MRI) crucially affects the evolution of solid bodies in protoplanetary disks. On the other hand, small dust particles stabilize MRI by capturing ionized gas particles needed for the coupling of the gas and magnetic fields. To provide an empirical basis for modeling the coevolution of dust and MRI, we perform three-dimensional, ohmic-resistive MHD simulations of a vertically stratified shearing box with an MRI-inactive "dead zone" of various sizes and with a net vertical magnetic flux of various strengths. We find that the vertical structure of turbulence is well characterized by the vertical magnetic flux and three critical heights derived from the linear analysis of MRI in a stratified disk. In particular, the turbulent structure depends on the resistivity profile only through the critical heights and is insensitive to the details of the resistivity profile. We discover scaling relations between the amplitudes of various turbulent quantities (velocity dispersion, density fluctuation, vertical diffusion coefficient, and outflow mass flux) and vertically integrated accretion stresses. We also obtain empirical formulae for the integrated accretion stresses as a function of the vertical magnetic flux and the critical heights. These empirical relations allow to predict the vertical turbulent structure of a protoplanetary disk for a given strength of the magnetic flux and a given resistivity profile.

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