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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Accretion, accretion discs

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Evolution Of A Circumplanetary Disc With A Dead Zone, Cheng Chen, Chao Chin Yang, Rebecca G. Martin, Zhaohuan Zhu Nov 2020

The Evolution Of A Circumplanetary Disc With A Dead Zone, Cheng Chen, Chao Chin Yang, Rebecca G. Martin, Zhaohuan Zhu

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

© 2021 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. We investigate whether the regular Galilean satellites could have formed in the dead zone of a circumplanetary disc. A dead zone is a region of weak turbulence in which the magnetorotational instability is suppressed, potentially an ideal environment for satellite formation. With the grid-based hydrodynamic code FARGO3D, we examine the evolution of a circumplanetary disc model with a dead zone. Material accumulates in the dead zone of the disc leading to a higher total mass and but a similar temperature profile compared to a fully turbulent disc model. The tidal torque increases …


Polar Alignment Of A Protoplanetary Disc Around An Eccentric Binary – Iii. Effect Of Disc Mass, Rebecca G. Martin, Stephen H. Lubow Sep 2019

Polar Alignment Of A Protoplanetary Disc Around An Eccentric Binary – Iii. Effect Of Disc Mass, Rebecca G. Martin, Stephen H. Lubow

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

An initially sufficiently misaligned low-mass protoplanetary disc around an eccentric binary undergoes damped nodal oscillations of tilt angle and longitude of ascending node. Dissipation causes evolution towards a stationary state of polar alignment in which the disc lies perpendicular to the binary orbital plane with angular momentum aligned to the eccentricity vector of the binary. We use hydrodynamic simulations and analytical methods to investigate how the mass of the disc affects this process. The simulations suggest that a disc with non-zero mass settles into a stationary state in the frame of the binary, the generalized polar state, at somewhat lower …


Polar Alignment Of A Protoplanetary Disc Around An Eccentric Binary - Ii. Effect Of Binary And Disc Parameters, Rebecca G. Martin, Stephen H. Lubow Jun 2018

Polar Alignment Of A Protoplanetary Disc Around An Eccentric Binary - Ii. Effect Of Binary And Disc Parameters, Rebecca G. Martin, Stephen H. Lubow

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

In a recent paper Martin & Lubow showed that a circumbinary disc around an eccentric binary can undergo damped nodal oscillations that lead to the polar (perpendicular) alignment of the disc relative to the binary orbit. The disc angular momentum vector aligns to the eccentricity vector of the binary. We explore the robustness of this mechanism for a low-mass disc (0.001 of the binary mass) and its dependence on system parameters by means of hydrodynamic disc simulations. We describe how the evolution depends upon the disc viscosity, temperature, size, binary mass ratio, orbital eccentricity, and inclination. We compare results with …