Gravitational instability of planetary gaps and its effect on orbital migration

Abstract

Gap formation by giant planets in self-gravitating disks may lead to a gravitational edge instability (GEI). We demonstrate this GEI with global 3D and 2D self-gravitating disk-planet simulations using the ZEUS, PLUTO and FARGO hydrodynamic codes. High resolution 2D simulations show that an unstable outer gap edge can lead to outwards orbital migration. Our results have important implications for theories of giant planet formation in massive disks.

Published in the proceedings of IAUS 299. Associated paper is arXiv:1306.2514. Poster can be found at http://cita.utoronto.ca/~mklin924/IAUposter.pdf

References in corpus (6)

• PLUTO: a Numerical Code for Computational Astrophysics
• Type I planetary migration in a self-gravitating disk
• Formation of giant planets and brown dwarfs on wide orbits
• Vortex and spiral instabilities at gap edges in three-dimensional self-gravitating disc-satellite simulations
• The potential impact of groove modes on Type II planetary migration
• Orbital migration of giant planets induced by gravitationally unstable gaps: the effect of planet mass