Description du projet
Des modèles améliorés pour expliquer comment les particules de poussière se sont transformées en planètes
Les toutes premières graines de planètes sont constituées de particules de poussière de l’ordre du micromètre, qui se heurtent les unes aux autres lorsqu’elles gravitent autour d’une étoile et forment des amas. Cependant, nous ignorons encore comment ces grains de poussière se développent pour devenir les blocs constitutifs des planètes. Le projet DUSTSPEC, financé par l’UE, réalisera des simulations hydrodynamiques pour modéliser l’évolution de la poussière. Les chercheurs reconstruiront la distribution complète à partir d’observations éparses, évitant ainsi de recourir à des observations coûteuses à plusieurs longueurs d’onde. Ils compareront également les distributions de poussières et de gaz en observant les disques protoplanétaires et la composition des corps du système solaire.
Objectif
Planets form in discs of gas and dust around young stars. Within these discs, micron-sized dust particles need to clump together to grow 14 orders of magnitude to form Earth-like planets as well as the cores of giant planets. It is a major challenge to understand dust growth from start to finish. State of the art observations provide spectacular glimpses of the dust distribution at a limited range of sizes: ALMA produces images of the thermal emission of mm-sized dust, while instruments such as SPHERE probe the distribution of much smaller particles. However, for a comprehensive theory of planet formation, we need to understand the process from start to finish, from micron-sized to planet-sized. This is therefore the story of the dust size distribution: how many dust specks, pebbles and boulders are present? While there are large size ranges that are out of reach observationally, in this project we will exploit the fact that all dust sizes are coupled to the gas via friction to take a panoptic view of the size distribution for the first time. Since the gas feels friction from all dust sizes, the size distribution is encoded in the gas kinematics, and therefore in every single dust size as well. We will perform hydrodynamical simulations including the full dust size distribution to write the polydisperse story of planet formation. We aim to reconstruct the full size distribution from sparse observations, thereby avoiding the need for expensize multi-wavelength observations. We will compare dust and gas distributions with observations of protoplanetary discs as well as the composition of Solar system bodies. We will use a novel numerical method that allows us to perform these computationally expensive simulations, and employ machine learning to speed up the calculations. This way, we will for the first time be able to build up a complete picture of how dust particles grow into planets and construct a comprehensive model of planet formation.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetsgiant planets
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetsexoplanetology
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsnumerical analysis
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedInstitution d’accueil
2628 CN Delft
Pays-Bas