您选择的条件: Ian Rabago
  • Polar alignment of a massive retrograde circumbinary disc around an eccentric binary

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: A test particle orbit around an eccentric binary has two stationary states in which there is no nodal precession: coplanar and polar. Nodal precession of a misaligned test particle orbit centres on one of these stationary states. A low mass circumbinary disc undergoes the same precession and moves towards one of these states through dissipation within the disc. For a massive particle orbit, the stationary polar alignment occurs at an inclination less than $90^{\circ}$, this is the prograde-polar stationary inclination. A sufficiently high angular momentum particle has an additional higher inclination stationary state, the retrograde-polar stationary inclination. Misaligned particle orbits close to the retrograde-polar stationary inclination are not nested like the orbits close to the other stationary points. We investigate the evolution of a gas disc that begins close to the retrograde-polar stationary inclination. With hydrodynamical disc simulations, we find that the disc moves through the unnested crescent shape precession orbits and eventually moves towards the prograde-polar stationary inclination thus increasing the parameter space over which circumbinary discs move towards polar alignment. If protoplanetary discs form with an isotropic orientation relative to the binary orbit, then polar discs may be more common than coplanar discs around eccentric binaries, even for massive discs. This has implications for the alignment of circumbinary planets.

  • Grid-Based Simulations of Polar Circumbinary Disks: Polar Alignment and Vortex Formation

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: We describe the first grid-based simulations of the polar alignment of a circumbinary disk. We simulate the evolution of an inclined disk around an eccentric binary using the grid-based code ATHENA++. The use of a grid-based numerical code allows us to explore lower disk viscosities than have been examined in previous studies. We find that the disk aligns to a polar orientation when the $\alpha$ viscosity is high, while disks with lower viscosity nodally precess with little alignment over 1000 binary orbital periods. The timescales for polar alignment and disk precession are compared as a function of disk viscosity, and are found to be in agreement with previous studies. At very low disk viscosities (e.g. $\alpha = 10^{-5}$), anticyclonic vortices are observed along the inner edge of the disk. These vortices can persist for thousands of binary orbits, creating azimuthally localized overdensities as well as multiple pairs of spiral arms. The vortex is formed at $\sim 3-4$ times the binary semi-major axis, close to the inner edge of the disk, and orbits at roughly the local Keplerian speed. The presence of a vortex in the disk may play an important role in the evolution of circumbinary systems, such as driving episodic accretion and accelerating the formation of polar circumbinary planets.