For this year's ASIAA Summer Student Program, I proposed a project on dust dynamics in protoplanetary disks:
Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars. Understanding the interaction between newly born planets and their surrounding disk is important for both theoretical and observational planet formation. In particular, disk-planet interaction is one possible explanation for the rings and gaps now commonly observed in protoplanetary disks. This scenario is often investigated using thin-disk models. However, protoplanetary disks are three-dimensional. In this project, we will model the evolution of gaps opened by planets in three-dimensional, dusty disks. The student will carry out large-scale numerical simulations to study how the gap and planet properties are related, as well as the relation between the radial and vertical structures of the gap. The results will be applied to interpret observations of gapped protoplanetary disks to infer their vertical structure and the masses of embedded planets. The student is expected to write up the project for publication.
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