Title: The Inner Rim in Protoplanetary Disks

Speaker: Mario Flock (California Institute of Technology)

Author: Mario Flock and Neal. J. Turner
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Abstract:
Many planets orbit within an AU of their stars, raising questions about their origins. Particularly puzzling are the planets found near the silicate sublimation front.
We investigate conditions near the front in the protostellar disk around a young intermediate-mass star, using the first global 3-D radiation non-ideal MHD simulations in this context.

The results show magnetorotational turbulence around the sublimation front at 0.5 AU. Beyond 0.8 AU is the dead zone, cooler than 1000 K and with turbulence orders of magnitude weaker.
A local pressure maximum just inside the dead zone concentrates solid particles, allowing for efficient growth. Over many orbits, a vortex develops at the dead zone's inner edge, increasing the disk's thickness locally by around 10 %.