PF-08-0005

Migrating Low-Mass Planets in Inviscid Dusty Protoplanetary Discs

He-Feng Hsieh

Disc-driven planet migration is integral to the formation of planetary systems. In standard, gas-dominated protoplanetary discs, low-mass planets and/or planetary cores undergo rapid inwards migration and are lost to the central star. However, several recent studies indicate that the solid component in protoplanetary discs can have a significant dynamical effect on disc-planet interaction, especially when the solid-to-gas mass ratio approaches unity or larger and the dust-on-gas drag forces become significant.

In this work, we study planet migration in dust-rich discs via a systematic set of high-resolution, two-dimensional numerical simulations. We show that the inwards migration of low-mass planets can be slowed down by dusty dynamical corotation torques. We also identify a new regime of stochastic migration applicable to discs with dust-to-gas mass ratios Z?0.3 and particle Stokes numbers St?0.03. In these cases, disc-planet interaction leads to the continuous development of small-scale, intense dust vortices that scatter the planet, which can potentially halt or even reverse the inwards planet migration.