Planet formation

Planets form from dust embedded in gaseous protoplanetary disks. Hydrodynamic instabilities can hinder growth by stirring turbulence, yet also help by creating structures that collect solids and promote planetesimal formation. Min-Kai Lin will discuss analytical and numerical studies of the vertical shear instability and convective overstability, their interactions with dust, and generalisations of the streaming instability to disks with accretion or magnetic fields. The seminar examines how these processes alter the conditions for concentrating solids and the challenges that remain in connect

…Physical Society at EPFL, on how exoplanet discoveries transformed understanding of planet formation and the search for life signatures in planetary atmospheres. Free admission for the general public.

…while providing the environment for planet formation. This lecture reviews their origin and evolution, including spectroscopic evidence of stellar accretion. It compares viscous-disk models with descriptions that incorporate magnetic fields and the structures they produce.