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| Paper: |
The Formation of a Planet in the Eye of a Hurricane - Vorticity Generation via the Global Baroclinic Instability in Accretion Disks |
| Volume: |
294, Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets |
| Page: |
277 |
| Authors: |
Klahr, H. |
| Abstract: |
Vortices play a crucial role in the formation of planets. They are probably formed naturally in protoplanetary accretion disks from a so called Global Baroclinic Instability that arises if the radial entropy gradient is strong enough. The vortices show up as huge stable anti-cyclonic rotating gas masses, that can be regarded as planetary precursors for two reasons. First they resemble peaks in the gas surface density about four times above the ambient medium, and second they concentrate very efficiently all solid dust above a certain size in their center. This makes it obvious that those vortices are the preferred formation sites for planets. A three-stage formation scenario can be invoked, where the vortices are phase one, dust concentration phase two, and finally gas accretion phase three. |
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