Authors: Richard H Durisen Thomas W Hartquist Megan K Pickett
Publish Date: 2008/07/23
Volume: 317, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 3-8
Abstract
Numerical hydrodynamics simulations have established that disks which are evolved under the condition of local isothermality will fragment into small dense clumps due to gravitational instabilities when the Toomre stability parameter Q is sufficiently low Because fragmentation through disk instability has been suggested as a gas giant planet formation mechanism it is important to understand the physics underlying this process as thoroughly as possible In this paper we offer analytic arguments for why at low Q fragments are most likely to form first at the corotation radii of growing spiral modes and we support these arguments with results from 3D hydrodynamics simulations
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