CAREER: Giant Planets in Dusty Disks

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

The influence of dust grains on growing planets and their host disks extends far beyond providing seed material for planet cores. Grains determine the disk vertical structure, disk evolution rate, and dominant planet formation mechanism. The PI and her team will incorporate dust settling and grain growth into a time-evolving protostellar disk model and use the model to test three hypotheses relating to the influence of dust on planet formation. First, grain growth and settling, by lowering the scale height of the protostellar disk, may restrict planets forming by core accretion to sub-Jupiter masses. Second, grain growth and settling may trigger gravitational instability in a disk that was previously stable by increasing the disk's transparency to its own radiation. Third, olivine grain opacity increases with iron abundance and decreases with magnesium abundance in the mid-infrared, where the disk radiates heat generated by viscous turbulence. The dominant planet formation mechanism may depend on the [Mg/Fe] ratio of the star-disk material. The PI will translate her research on planet formation into educational enrichment for first-year college students by starting the New Orbits program, a cohort of 20 students each year who will form a learning community centered on planetary science. The New Orbits program is designed to help incoming students feel confident in their ability to pursue a career in science. New Orbits students will attend a weekly seminar with the PI and take astronomy and geology classes together each semester to fulfill their general science requirement while learning the basics of planetary science. The capstone of the New Orbits program will be a yearly field trip to McDonald Observatory to learn about historic and ongoing planetary research at the 82 inch telescope.