Nebula tides and gap formation
Abstract
The process by which a planetoid embedded in a nebula disk clears a gap around its orbit is investigated theoretically, with a focus on the role of density waves in transferring angular momentum from the orbit to the nebula and vice versa. Consideration is given to torque density, nebula truncation, and wave damping, and the results of simulations using simple particle models are presented graphically. Wave damping by turbulent viscosity and nonlinear wave generation is found to be a plausible mechanism for gap formation by a Jovian-size body, but remains to be demonstrated for smaller bodies. The need to take the vertical dimension of the disk and the vertical resonances into account in modeling density-wave development and propagation is indicated.
- Publication:
-
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
- Pub Date:
- 1984
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1323358000017318
- Bibcode:
- 1984PASA....5..461H
- Keywords:
-
- Density Wave Model;
- Mass Distribution;
- Nebulae;
- Planetary Evolution;
- Planetary Rotation;
- Protoplanets;
- Angular Momentum;
- Cosmology;
- Gaps;
- Orbits;
- Planetology;
- Torque;
- Viscous Damping;
- Astrophysics