arXiv subjects

Jeonghoon Lim

Publications and source records attributed to Jeonghoon Lim.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Azimuthal Dust Polarization from Aerodynamically Aligned Grains as Evidence for the Streaming Instability in Protoplanetary Disks

(Sub)millimeter dust polarization in protoplanetary disks has revealed the presence of large (~ 100 um) dust grains that are aligned along their long axis following the azimuthal direction of the disk. The novel badminton birdie-like aerodynamic alignment predicts large grains to align with their long axes following the direction of gas flow experienced by the dust, denoted as the A-field. With 3D streaming instability (SI) simulations, we find that the A-field is predominantly in the radial direction in regions of low dust-to-gas ratio, but in the azimuthal direction in regions of high dust-to-gas ratio. Through polarized radiation transfer, we find that the resulting polarization angle indeed follows the disk azimuthal direction in the high dust density regions. Therefore, ongoing SI is an attractive candidate for producing the azimuthal dust polarization pattern as observed in an increasing number of disks.

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arXiv2026

Conditions for planetesimal formation via the streaming instability persist under turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability

Strong dust clumping by streaming instability (SI) is the leading proposed mechanism for forming planetesimals, the building blocks of terrestrial planets and giant-planet cores. The critical dust-to-gas density ratio above which the SI leads to dust concentration strong enough to result in gravitational collapse depends on local dust properties and disk conditions, such as particle Stokes number, pressure gradient, and turbulence. The role of turbulence has recently drawn attention because simulations have shown that even modest levels of istropically forced turbulence can significantly increase the critical dust-to-gas ratio. However, we show that this does not hold for turbulence self-consistently generated by the magnetorotational instability (MRI). We present the first parameter study of the SI in three-dimensional shearing-box simulations including non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics with ambipolar diffusion. Modest turbulence yields a clumping boundary as low as pure hydrodynamical cases, while stronger turbulence does increase the critical dust-to-gas density ratio, though appreciably less than in the models where turbulence is isotropically forced. Particle concentration occurs inside zonal flows, large-scale structures generated by the MRI. Our results suggest that self-consistent, MRI-driven turbulence does not necessarily inhibit planetesimal formation.

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arXiv2026

A Comparative Study of the Streaming Instability: Unstratified Models with Marginally Coupled Grains

The streaming instability is a leading mechanism for concentrating solids and initiating planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks. Although numerous studies have explored its linear growth, nonlinear evolution, and implications for planet formation, the diversity of numerical methods and dust treatments used across the literature has made it difficult to assess which features of the instability are physically robust and which arise from code-dependent choices. We present the first systematic comparison of seven hydrodynamic codes--spanning finite-volume and finite-difference schemes and modeling dust either as Lagrangian particles or as a pressureless fluid--applied to the unstratified streaming instability with a dimensionless stopping time of unity. All codes reproduce the characteristic sequence of exponential growth, filament formation, and turbulent saturation, demonstrating broad agreement in the qualitative behavior of the instability. Quantitatively, however, the dust model remains the dominant source of variation at moderate resolution: particle-based simulations reach higher peak densities and exhibit broader high-density tails than fluid-based models at $512^2$ resolution, although increasing the number of particles brings their initial maximum density evolution into close agreement with that of dust-fluid models. At $1024^2$, these differences diminish substantially, indicating better agreement of the saturated-state statistics across dust treatments. In terms of computational performance, most particle implementations suffer from imbalanced parallelized loads, while execution on a GPU is at least two to three times more energy efficient and scales better at higher resolutions than on CPUs. Given the intrinsic stochasticity of this nonlinear system, only statistical diagnostics remain meaningful across codes.

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arXiv2025

The Streaming Instability in 3D: Conditions for Strong Clumping

The streaming instability (SI) is a leading mechanism for planetesimal formation, driving the aerodynamic concentration of solids in protoplanetary disks. The SI triggers strong clumping (i.e., strong enough for clumps to collapse) when the solid-to-gas column density ratio, $Z$, exceeds a threshold, $\Zcrit$. This threshold depends on the dimensionless stopping time, $\tau_s$. Although the strong-clumping threshold has been explored over the last decade, it has been determined largely through 2D axisymmetric simulations. In this work, we perform a suite of 3D, vertically stratified simulations to establish a clumping threshold across $10^{-3} \leq \tau_s \leq 1.0$. Additionally, we study SI-driven concentration that is unique to 3D. We find that $\Zcrit$ is as low as $\approx 0.002$ at $\tau_s=0.1$ and exceeds $\approx 0.03$ at $\tau_s=10^{-3}$. Compared to 2D, our 3D results yield lower $\Zcrit$ for $\tau_s > 0.02$, but higher for $\tau_s \leq 0.02$, with a sharp transition between $\tau_s = 0.02$ and 0.03. This transition correlates with midplane density ratio ($\epsilon$): $\epsilon < 1$ where 3D gives lower thresholds, and $\epsilon > 1$ where 3D gives higher thresholds. We also find a filaments-in-filaments structure when $\epsilon < 1$, which enhances clumping compared to 2D. By contrast, when $\epsilon > 1$ and $\tau_s \leq 0.03$, dust filaments in 3D do not drift inward, suppressing filament mergers and strong clumping. In 2D, filaments drift inward regardless of $\epsilon$, triggering strong clumping easier in this regime. Our results underscore the necessity of 3D simulations for accurately capturing SI-driven concentration and building the strong-clumping threshold.

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arXiv2025

On the Mass Budget Problem of Protoplanetary Disks: Streaming Instability and Optically Thick Emission

Statistical studies of protoplanetary disks and exoplanet populations often exhibit a "missing mass" problem, where observed dust masses in (sub-)millimeter surveys are significantly lower than expected when compared to the mass of evolved exoplanetary systems. We investigate how the streaming instability and subsequent planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks might solve this missing mass problem when (sub-)millimeter observations are interpreted under the assumption of optically thin emission. We conduct hydrodynamical simulations of the streaming instability with self-gravity after which radiative transfer calculations with dust scattering are performed to measure the (sub-)millimeter intensity. The measured intensity is then used to estimate the disk mass under the assumption of optically thin emission and compared to the true mass in the simulation to calculate the observational bias via the mass excess. We find that the emission from overdense filaments that emerge due to the streaming instability are optically thick at (sub-)millimeter wavelengths, leading to mass excess factors of $\sim 2-7$, even when the optically thick fraction is low.

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arXiv2025

Bridging Unstratified and Stratified Simulations of the Streaming Instability for $\tau_s=0.1$ Grains

The streaming instability (SI), driven by aerodynamic coupling between solids and the gas under a global radial pressure gradient, concentrates solids and facilitates planetesimal formation. Unstratified simulations are commonly used to study the SI, based on the assumption that they approximate conditions near the disk midplane. However, it remains unclear how accurately these unstratified simulations capture the midplane dust-gas dynamics in stratified disks. To address this, we examine the saturated state of the SI in stratified simulations and compare dust-gas dynamics to those in unstratified simulations across various radial pressure gradients. To this end, we consider a dimensionless dust stopping time ($\tau_s$) of 0.1 and perform 2D axisymmetric, stratified simulations. We find that the formation of dust filaments during dust settling exhibits morphological similarities to those in unstratified simulations. Vertical gravity acts to redistribute momentum vertically in response to momentum flux, resulting in midplane velocities in the center-of-mass frame that are consistent with those from unstratified models at any given pressure gradient. Furthermore, the velocity dispersions and density distributions of the gas and dust near the midplane of our stratified simulations closely match those in unstratified simulations. While further exploration across the parameter space is needed, our results suggest that, for $\tau_s=0.1$, unstratified simulations represents well the midplane dust--gas dynamics in stratified disks before any strong clumping occurs. Consequently, our results confirm that in the saturated state, the streaming turbulence in stratified simulations behaves similarly to that in unstratified simulations for the parameter values explored here.

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arXiv2025

Positive Feedback II: How Dust Coagulation inside Vortices Can Form Planetesimals at Low Metallicity

The origin of planetesimals ($\sim$100 km planet building blocks) has confounded astronomers for decades, as numerous growth barriers appear to impede their formation. In a recent paper we proposed a novel interaction where the streaming instability (SI) and dust coagulation work in tandem, with each one changing the environment in a way that benefits the other. This mechanism proved effective at forming planetesimals in the fragmentation-limited inner disk, but much less effective in the drift-limited outer disk, concluding that dust traps may be key to forming planets at wide orbital separations. Here we explore a different hypothesis: That vortices host a feedback loop in which a vortex traps dust, boosting dust coagulation, which in turn boosts vortex trapping. We combine an analytic model of vortex trapping with an analytic model of fragmentation limited grain growth that accounts for how dust concentration dampens gas turbulence. We find a powerful synergy between vortex trapping and dust growth. For $\alpha \le 10^{-3}$ and solar-like metallicity this feedback loop consistently takes the grain size and dust density into the planetesimal formation region of the streaming instability (SI). Only in the regime of strong turbulence ($\alpha \ge 3\times 10^{-3}$) does the system often converge to a steady state below the SI criterion. The combination of vortex trapping with dust coagulation is an even more powerful mechanism than the one involving the SI. It is effective at lower metallicity and across the whole disk -- anywhere that vortices form.

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arXiv2025

Positive Feedback: How a Synergy Between the Streaming Instability and Dust Coagulation Forms Planetesimals

One of the most important open questions in planet formation is how dust grains in a protoplanetary disk manage to overcome growth barriers and form the $\sim$100km planet building blocks that we call planetesimals. There appears to be a gap between the largest grains that can be produce by coagulation, and the smallest grains that are needed for the streaming instability (SI) to form planetesimals. Here we explore a novel hypothesis: That dust coagulation and the SI work in tandem. That they form a feedback loop where each one boosts the action of the other to bridge the gap between dust grains and planetesimals. We develop a semi-analytical model of dust concentration due to the SI, and an analytic model of how the SI affects the fragmentation and radial drift barriers. We then combine those to model our proposed feedback loop. In the fragmentation-limited regime, we find a powerful synergy between the SI and dust growth that drastically increases both grain sizes and densities. We find that a midplane dust-to-gas ratio of $\epsilon \ge 0.3$ is a sufficient condition for the feedback loop to reach the planetesimal-forming region for turbulence values $10^{-4} \le \alpha \le 10^{-3}$ and grain sizes $0.01 \le {\rm St} \le 0.1$. In contrast, the drift-limited regime only shows grain growth, without significant dust accumulation. Planet formation in the drift-limited portion of the disk may require other processes (particle traps) to halt radial drift.

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arXiv2024

Probing Conditions for Strong Clumping by the Streaming Instability: Small Dust Grains and Low Dust-to-gas Density Ratio

The streaming instability (SI) is a leading mechanism for concentrating solid particles into regions dense enough to form planetesimals. Its efficiency in clumping particles depends primarily on the dimensionless stopping time ($\tau_s$, a proxy for particle size) and dust-to-gas surface density ratio ($Z$). Previous simulations identified a critical $Z$ ($Z_{\rm{crit}}$) above which strong clumping occurs, where particle densities exceed the Hill density (thus satisfying a condition for gravitational collapse), over a wide range of $\tau_s$. These works found that for $\tau_s \leq 0.01$, $Z_{\rm{crit}}$ was above the ISM value $(\sim 0.01)$. In this work, we reexamine the clumping threshold using 2D axisymmetric, stratified simulations at high resolution and with relatively large (compared to many previous simulations) domain sizes. Our main results are as follows: First, when $\tau_s = 0.01$, strong clumping occurs even at $Z \lesssim 0.01$, lower than $Z_{\rm{crit}}$ found in all previous studies. Consequently, we revise a previously published fit to the $Z_{\rm{crit}}$ curve to account for this updated $Z_{\rm{crit}}$. Second, higher resolution results in a thicker dust layer, which may result from other instabilities manifesting, such as the vertical shearing streaming instability. Third, despite this thicker layer, higher resolution can lead to strong clumping even with lower midplane dust-to-gas density ratios (which results from the thicker particle layer) so long as $Z \gtrsim Z_{\rm{crit}}$. Our results demonstrate the efficiency of the SI in clumping small particles at $Z \sim 0.01$, which is a significant refinement of the conditions for planetesimal formation by the SI.

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arXiv2023

Streaming Instability and Turbulence: Conditions for Planetesimal Formation

The streaming instability (SI) is a leading candidate for planetesimal formation, which can concentrate solids through two-way aerodynamic interactions with the gas. The resulting concentrations can become sufficiently dense to collapse under particle self-gravity, forming planetesimals. Previous studies have carried out large parameter surveys to establish the critical particle to gas surface density ratio ($Z$), above which SI-induced concentration triggers planetesimal formation. The threshold $Z$ depends on the dimensionless stopping time ($\tau_s$, a proxy for dust size). However, these studies neglected both particle self-gravity and external turbulence. Here, we perform 3D stratified shearing box simulations with both particle self-gravity and turbulent forcing, which we characterize via $\alpha_D$ that measures turbulent diffusion. We find that forced turbulence, at amplitudes plausibly present in some protoplanetary disks, can increase the threshold $Z$ by up to an order of magnitude. For example, for $\tau_s = 0.01$, planetesimal formation occurs when $Z \gtrsim 0.06$, $\gtrsim 0.1$, and $\gtrsim 0.2$ at $\alpha_D = 10^{-4}$, $10^{-3.5}$, and $10^{-3}$, respectively. We provide a single fit to the critical $Z$ as a function of $\alpha_D$ and $\tau_s$ required for the SI to work (though limited to the range $\tau_s = 0.01$--0.1). Our simulations also show that planetesimal formation requires a mid-plane particle-to-gas density ratio that exceeds unity, with the critical value being independent of $\alpha_D$. Finally, we provide the estimation of particle scale height that accounts for both particle feedback and external turbulence.

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arXiv2020

Generation of Solenoidal Modes and Magnetic Fields in Turbulence Driven by Compressive Driving

We perform numerical simulations of hydrodynamic (HD) and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence driven by compressive driving to study generation of solenoidal velocity component and small-scale magnetic field. We mainly focus on the effects of mean magnetic field ($B_0$) and the sonic Mach number ($M_s$). We also consider two different driving schemes in terms of correlation timescale of forcing vectors: a finite-correlated driving and a delta-correlated driving. The former has a longer correlation timescale of forcing vectors, which is comparable to large-eddy turnover time, than the latter. Our findings are as follows. First, when we fix the value of $B_0$, the level of solenoidal velocity component after saturation increases as $M_s$ increases. A similar trend is observed for generation of magnetic field when $B_0$ is small. Second, when we fix the value of $M_s$, HD and MHD simulations result in similar level of the solenoidal component when $B_0$ $\lesssim$ 0.2 (or Alfven Mach number of $\sim$ 5). However, the level increases when $B_0$ $\gtrsim$ 0.2. Roughly speaking, the magnetic energy density after saturation is a linearly increasing function of $B_0$ irrespective of $M_s$. Third, generation of solenoidal velocity component is not sensitive to numerical resolution, but that of magnetic energy density is mildly sensitive. Lastly, when initial conditions are same, the finite-correlated driving always produces more solenoidal velocity and small-scale magnetic field components than the delta-correlated driving. We additionally analyze the vorticity equation to understand why higher $M_s$ and $B_0$ yield larger quantity of the solenoidal velocity component.

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arXiv2020

Decay of Turbulence in Fluids with Polytropic Equations of State

We present numerical simulations of decaying hydrodynamic turbulence initially driven by solenoidal (divergence-free) and compressive (curl-free) driving. Most previous numerical studies for decaying turbulence assume an isothermal equation of state (EOS). Here we use a polytropic EOS, $P$ $\propto$ $\rho^{\gamma}$, with polytropic $\gamma$ ranging from 0.7 to 5/3. We mainly aim at determining the effects of polytropic $\gamma$ and driving schemes on the decay law of turbulence energy, E $\propto$ $t^{-\alpha}$. We additionally study probability density function (PDF) of gas density and skewness of the distribution in polytropic turbulence driven by compressive driving. Our findings are as follows. First of all, we find that even if polytropic $\gamma$ does not strongly change scaling relation of the decay law, the driving schemes weakly change the relation; in our all simulations, turbulence decays with $\alpha$ $\approx$ 1, but compressive driving yields smaller $\alpha$ than solenoidal driving at the same sonic Mach number. Second, we calculate compressive and solenoidal velocity components separately and compare their decay rates in turbulence initially driven by compressive driving. We find that the former decays much faster so that it ends up having a smaller fraction than the latter. Third, the density PDF of compressively driven turbulence with polytropic $\gamma$ $>$ 1 deviates from log-normal distribution: it has a power-law tail at low density as in the case of solenoidally driven turbulence. However, as it decays, the density PDF becomes approximately log-normal. We discuss why decay rates of compressive and solenoidal velocity components are different in compressively driven turbulence and astrophysical implication of our findings.

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