2005/01/13 by Joseph Barranco, J. A. Barranco, Philip Marcus +1 · 144 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Classical mechanics #Instability #Mechanics #Physics #Planet #Potential vorticity #Protoplanetary disk #Scale height #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Vortex #Vorticity #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/428639
published in The Astrophysical Journal 623(2), 1157-1170 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted to ApJ 05 Jan. 2005; 34 pages, 6 color figures, 5 b&w figures; figures here are low-res, high-res figures and associated movie files (mpeg) found at http://theory.itp.ucsb.edu/~barranco
arxiv created 2005/01/13 · openalex publication_date 2005/04/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the results of high-resolution, three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the dynamics and formation of coherent, long-lived vortices in stably stratified protoplanetary disks. Tall, columnar vortices that extend vertically through many scale heights in the disk are unstable to small perturbations; such vortices cannot maintain vertical alignment over more than a few scale heights and are ripped apart by the Keplerian shear. Short, finite-height vortices that extend only 1 scale height above and below the midplane are also unstable, but for a different reason: we have isolated an antisymmetric (with respect to the midplane) eigenmode that grows with an e -folding time of only a few orbital periods; the nonlinear evolution of this instability leads to the destruction of the vortex. Serendipitously, we observe the formation of three-dimensional vortices that are centered not in the midplane, but at 1-3 scale heights above and below. Breaking internal gravity waves create vorticity; anticyclonic regions of vorticity roll up and coalesce into new vortices, whereas cyclonic regions shear into thin azimuthal bands. Unlike the midplane-centered vortices that were placed ad hoc in the disk and turned out to be linearly unstable, the off-midplane vortices form naturally out of perturbations in the disk and are stable and robust for many hundreds of orbits.