Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1999-02-12
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
11 pages, 6 Postscript figures, uses ws-p9-75x6-50.cls
Scientific paper
We investigated numerically the dust growth driven by Brownian motion in a proto-planetary disc around a solar-type young stellar object. This process is considered as the first stage in the transformation of the initially micron-sized solid particles to a planetary system. In contrast to earlier studies the growth was investigated at the small particle number densities typical for the conditions in a proto-planetary disc. Under such circumstances, the mean particle distance exceeds the typical aggregate diameter by orders of magnitude, and a collision will be a very rare event. We derived a criterion which allows an efficient detection of candidates for imminent collisions. The N-particle-method we used is based upon an adaptive time step scheme respecting the individual dynamical states of the aggregates. Its basic concept is to perform on average constant ``length steps'', instead of using constant time steps. The numerical cost of the algorithm scales with the particle number better than N log N. In order to minimise the influence of the decreasing number of particles within the simulation box, a new rescaling method is used throughout the aggregation process. Our numerical results indicate that at very low number densities, the growth process is influenced by spatial number density fluctuations.
Henning Th
Kempf Sascha
Pfalzner Susanne
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