Robinson, A. orcid.org/0009-0000-9157-2239, Booth, R.A. orcid.org/0000-0002-0364-937X and Owen, J.E. orcid.org/0000-0002-4856-7837 (2024) Introducing cuDisc: A 2D code for protoplanetary disc structure and evolution calculations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 529 (2). pp. 1524-1541. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
We present a new 2D axisymmetric code, cuDisc, for studying protoplanetary discs, focusing on the self-consistent calculation of dust dynamics, grain size distribution and disc temperature. Self-consistently studying these physical processes is essential for many disc problems, such as structure formation and dust removal, given that the processes heavily depend on one another. To follow the evolution over substantial fractions of the disc lifetime, cuDisc uses the CUDA language and libraries to speed up the code through GPU acceleration. cuDisc employs a second-order finite-volume Godonuv solver for dust dynamics, solves the Smoluchowski equation for dust growth and calculates radiative transfer using a multi-frequency hybrid ray-tracing/flux-limited-diffusion method. We benchmark our code against current state-of-the-art codes. Through studying steady-state problems, we find that including 2D structure reveals that when collisions are important, the dust vertical structure appears to reach a diffusion-settling-coagulation equilibrium that can differ substantially from standard models that ignore coagulation. For low fragmentation velocities, we find an enhancement of intermediate-sized dust grains at heights of ∼1 gas scale height due to the variation in collision rates with height, and for large fragmentation velocities, we find an enhancement of small grains around the disc mid-plane due to collisional ‘sweeping’ of small grains by large grains. These results could be important for the analysis of disc SEDs or scattered light images, given these observables are sensitive to the vertical grain distribution.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | protoplanetary discs; methods: numerical; stars: pre-main sequence |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Astrophysics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Royal Society RF\ERE\231082 Royal Society URF\R1\211799 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Mar 2024 11:14 |
Last Modified: | 08 Aug 2024 14:53 |
Published Version: | https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/529/2/1524/... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stae624 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:209843 |