Curveballs in protoplanetary disks - the effect of the Magnus force on planet formation

Abstract

Spinning planetesimals in a gaseous protoplanetary disk may experience a hydrodynamical force perpendicular to their relative velocities. We examine the effect this force has on the dynamics of these objects using analytical arguments based on a simple laminar disk model and numerical integrations of the equations of motion for individual grains. We focus in particular on meter-sized boulders traditionally expected to spiral in to the central star in as little as 100 years from 1 A.U. We find that there are plausible scenarios in which this force extends the lifetime of these solids in the disk by a factor of several. More importantly the velocities induced by the Magnus force can prevent the formation of planetesimals via gravitational instability in the inner disk if the size of the dust particles is larger than of order 10 cm. We find that the fastest growing linear modes of the streaming instability may still grow despite the diffusive effect of the Magnus force, but it remains to be seen how the Magnus force will alter the non-linear evolution of these instabilities.

MNRAS Accepted

References in corpus (5)

• Disintegrating Asteroid P/2013 R3
• On the Feeding Zone of Planetesimal Formation by the Streaming Instability
• Effect of rotational disruption on the size-frequency distribution of the Main Belt asteroid population
• Rotation of cometary meteoroids
• Effect of lift force on the aerodynamics of dust grains in the protoplanetary disk

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Efficiency of Planetesimal Ablation in Giant Planetary Envelopes
• Trajectory Deflection of Spinning Magnetic Microparticles, the Magnus Effect at the Microscale
• Exactly solvable model for drift of suspended ferromagnetic particles induced by the Magnus force
• Drift of suspended ferromagnetic particles due to the Magnus effect