Baroclinic Vorticity Production in Protoplanetary Disks; Part II: Vortex Growth and Longevity

Abstract

The factors affecting vortex growth in convectively stable protoplanetary disks are explored using numerical simulations of a two-dimensional anelastic-gas model which includes baroclinic vorticity production and radiative cooling. The baroclinic feedback, where anomalous temperature gradients produce vorticity through the baroclinic term and vortices then reinforce these temperature gradients, is found to be an important process in the rate of growth of vortices in the disk. Factors which strengthen the baroclinic feedback include fast radiative cooling, high thermal diffusion, and large radial temperature gradients in the background temperature. When the baroclinic feedback is sufficiently strong, anticyclonic vortices form from initial random perturbations and maintain their strength for the duration of the simulation, for over 600 orbital periods. Based on both simulations and a simple vortex model, we find that the local angular momentum transport due to a single vortex may be inward or outward, depending its orientation. The global angular momentum transport is highly variable in time, and is sometimes negative and sometimes positive. This result is for an anelastic gas model, and does not include shocks that could affect angular momentum transport in a compressible-gas disk.

Originally submitted to The Astrophysical Journal April 3, 2006; resubmitted November 3, 2006; accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Dec 5, 2006

References in corpus (1)

• Vortices in Thin, Compressible, Unmagnetized Disks

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Convective overstability in accretion disks: 3D linear analysis and nonlinear saturation
• On the vertical-shear instability in astrophysical discs
• Planetesimal Population Synthesis: Pebble Flux Regulated Planetesimal Formation
• High Resolution Parameter Study of the Vertical Shear Instability
• The Sandwich Mode for Vertical Shear Instability in Protoplanetary Disks
• Disk-Planet Interaction Simulations: (I) Baroclinic Generation of Vortensity and Non-Axisymmetric Rossby-Wave-Instability
• Interpreting the Variability of Double-Peaked Emission Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei with Stochastically Perturbed Accretion Disk Models
• Cooling-Induced Vortex Decay in Keplerian Disks
• Impact of Local Pressure Enhancements on Dust Concentration inTurbulent Protoplanetary Discs
• Stability and nonlinear adjustment of vortices in Keplerian flows
• Oscillatory migration of accreting protoplanets driven by a 3D distortion of the gas flow
• Dust Coagulation Reconciles Protoplanetary Disk Observations with the Vertical Shear Instability. I. Dust Coagulation and the VSI Dead Zone
• On the Vertical Shear Instability in Magnetized Protoplanetary Disks
• No self-shadowing instability in 2D radiation-hydrodynamical models of irradiated protoplanetary disks
• Rossby Wave Instabilities of Protoplanetary Discs with Cooling
• A shallow-water theory for annular sections of Keplerian Disks
• Novel mechanism for vorticity generation in black-hole accretion disks
• Magnetic shear-driven instability and turbulent mixing in magnetized protostellar disks
• Hydrodynamical activity in thin accretion disks
• Morphology and dynamical stability of self-gravitating vortices: Numerical simulations
• Linear dynamics of weakly viscous accretion disks: A disk analog of Tollmien-Schlichting waves
• Analytic construction of baroclinic tori by non-linear summation