Submillimetre-sized dust aggregate collision and growth properties

Abstract

The collisional and sticking properties of sub-mm-sized aggregates composed of protoplanetary dust analogue material are measured, including the statistical threshold velocity between sticking and bouncing, their surface energy and tensile strength within aggregate clusters. We performed an experiment on the REXUS 12 suborbital rocket. The protoplanetary dust analogue materials were micrometre-sized monodisperse and polydisperse SiO2 particles prepared into aggregates with sizes around 120 $\mu$m and 330 $\mu$m, respectively and volume filling factors around 0.37. During the experimental run of 150 s under reduced gravity conditions, the sticking of aggregates and the formation and fragmentation of clusters of up to a few millimetres in size was observed. The sticking probability of the sub-mm-sized dust aggregates could be derived for velocities decreasing from 22 to 3 cm/s. The transition from bouncing to sticking collisions happened at 12.7 cm/s for the smaller aggregates composed of monodisperse particles and at 11.5 and 11.7 cm/s for the larger aggregates composed of mono- and polydisperse dust particles, respectively. Using the pull-off force of sub-mm-sized dust aggregates from the clusters, the surface energy of the aggregates composed of monodisperse dust was derived to be 1.6x10-5 J/m2, which can be scaled down to 1.7x10-2 J/m2 for the micrometre-sized monomer particles and is in good agreement with previous measurements for silica particles. The tensile strengths of these aggregates within the clusters were derived to be 1.9 Pa and 1.6 Pa for the small and large dust aggregates, respectively. These values are in good agreement with recent tensile strength measurements for mm-sized silica aggregates. Using our data on the sticking-bouncing threshold, estimates of the maximum aggregate size can be given. For a minimum mass solar nebula model, aggregates can reach sizes of 1 cm.

arXiv comment21 pages (incl. 6 pages of appendix), 23 figures

References in corpus (23)

• Streaming Instabilities in Protoplanetary Disks
• Coagulation, fragmentation and radial motion of solid particles in protoplanetary disks
• The outcome of protoplanetary dust growth: pebbles, boulders, or planetesimals? II. Introducing the bouncing barrier
• The outcome of protoplanetary dust growth: pebbles, boulders, or planetesimals? I. Mapping the zoo of laboratory collision experiments
• Closed-form expressions for particle relative velocities induced by turbulence
• High Resolution Submillimeter Constraints on Circumstellar Disk Structure
• Zonal Flows and Long-Lived Axisymmetric Pressure Bumps in Magnetorotational Turbulence
• Fluffy dust forms icy planetesimals by static compression
• Planetesimal formation by sweep-up: How the bouncing barrier can be beneficial to growth
• Turbulent Mixing and the Dead Zone in Protostellar Disks
• Free Collisions in a Microgravity Many-Particle Experiment. I. Dust Aggregate Sticking at Low Velocities
• The formation and evolution of planetary systems: Grain growth and chemical processing of dust in T Tauri systems
• Dust release and tensile strength of the non-volatile layer of cometary nuclei
• Adding particle collisions to the formation of asteroids and Kuiper belt objects via streaming instabilities
• Planetesimal formation around the snow line in MRI-driven turbulent protoplanetary disks
• Breaking through: The effects of a velocity distribution on barriers to dust growth
• The Physics of Protoplanetesimal Dust Agglomerates. III. Compaction in Multiple Collisions
• From dust to planetesimals: an improved model for collisional growth in protoplanetary disks
• Comets formed in solar-nebula instabilities! -- An experimental and modeling attempt to relate the activity of comets to their formation process (corrigendum included)
• The Physics of Protoplanetesimal Dust Agglomerates. IV. Towards a Dynamical Collision Model
• Free Collisions in a Microgravity Many-Particle Experiment III: The Collision Behavior of sub-Millimeter-Sized Dust Aggregates
• Free Collisions in a Microgravity Many-Particle Experiment. II. The Collision Dynamics of Dust-Coated Chondrules
• The Suborbital Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment (SPACE): Studying the Collision Behavior of Submillimeter-Sized Dust Aggregates on the Suborbital Rocket Flight REXUS 12

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Synthesis of the Morphological Description of Cometary Dust at Comet 67P
• Dust evolution in protoplanetary discs and the formation of planetesimals. What have we learned from laboratory experiments?
• The thermal, mechanical, structural, and dielectric properties of cometary nuclei after Rosetta
• Small Solar System Bodies as granular media
• Understanding planet formation using microgravity experiments
• Formation of Comets
• Size Dependence of the Bouncing Barrier in Protoplanetary Dust Growth
• Growing into and out of the bouncing barrier in planetesimal formation
• Low-velocity collision behaviour of clusters composed of sub-mm sized dust aggregates
• Experiments on cometary activity: ejection of dust aggregates from a sublimating water-ice surface
• A quantitative description of comet 67P's dust and gas production remains enigmatic
• Impacts of viscous dissipation on collisional growth and fragmentation of dust aggregates
• Analog Experiments on Tensile Strength of Dusty and Cometary Matter
• NanoRocks: Design and Performance of an Experiment Studying Planet Formation on the International Space Station
• Multi-Particle Collisions in Microgravity: Coefficient of Restitution and Sticking Threshold for Systems of Mm-Sized Particles
• Thermophysical model for icy cometary dust particles
• Selective Aggregation Experiments on Planetesimal Formation and Mercury-Like Planets
• Clusters of tribocharged dust aggregates as pebbles in protoplanetary disks
• Revisiting sticking property of submillimetre-sized aggregates
• Interpebble contact radius in a comet nucleus