Vortragsdetails

Montag, 9. Mai 2011 - 11:00

Cornelius Dullemond:

"The growth of a planetesimal by accretion of small particles: Does the ambient gas help or make it more difficult?"

Zusammenfassung. One of the fundamental questions of planet formation is how planetesimals (1-1000 km size bodies) can sweep up smaller particles to grow bigger. Since such planetesimals are embedded in a protoplanetary gas disk, the particles that might accrete onto the planetesimal will be affected by gas drag. So in addition to studying how particles are gravitationally attracted to the planetesimal, we also need to study how gas flows around the planetesimal. This problem is a combination of orbital dynamics and gas dynamics. I will discuss some analytical estimates of this problem and methods to possibly solve it.