Dust : in the heart of planet formation

Séminaire IPAG de Guillaume Laibe (University of St Andrews), jeudi 20 mars 2014 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

The solid material found in planets was initially present in the form of dust particles in protoplanetary discs. Explaining how those small bodies can grow so efficiently challenges the astrophysicists for decades. In this context, I will first present some recent theoretical results on the coupling between growth and radial migration of grains in those discs. I will then discuss the numerical challenges related to two-fluids (gas and dust) simulations, highlighting some fundamental limitations that are abundantly ignored in astrophysics. I will present a method which is conceptually revolutionary and allows to overcome these difficulties.