Exploring the Vertical Shear Instability in starlight-heated protoplanetary disks

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• David Melon-Fuksman [MPIA Heidelberg]
• Tuesday 27 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
• MR4 DAMTP and online.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Loren E. Held.

In weakly ionized regions of protoplanetary disks, hydrodynamic instabilities likely play a key role in the development of turbulence, the formation of structures, and the transport of angular momentum. Among these, the vertical shear instability (VSI) stands out as a robust mechanism, requiring only baroclinic stratification and short thermal relaxation timescales to operate. In this talk, I will present results from axisymmetric radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of the VSI in passive, irradiated T Tauri disks, focusing on angular momentum redistribution, the emergence of secondary instabilities, and their role in VSI saturation. I will also discuss how dust and molecular cooling shape the regions where the VSI can operate, and compare these results with current observations of protoplanetary disks.

This talk is part of the DAMTP Astrophysics Seminars series.

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