On dust entrainment in photoevaporative winds

On dust entrainment in photoevaporative winds

Authors:

Hutchison et al

Abstract:

We investigate dust entrainment by photoevaporative winds in protoplanetary discs using dusty smoothed particle hydrodynamics. We use unequal-mass particles to resolve more than five orders of magnitude in disc/outflow density and a one-fluid formulation to efficiently simulate an equivalent magnitude range in drag stopping time. We find that only micron-sized dust grains and smaller can be entrained in extreme-UV radiation-driven winds. The maximum grain size is set by dust settling in the disc rather than aerodynamic drag in the wind. More generally, there is a linear relationship between the base flow density and the maximum entrainable grain size in the wind. A pileup of micron-sized dust grains can occur in the upper atmosphere at critical radii in the disc as grains decouple from the low-density wind. Entrainment is a strong function of location in the disc, resulting in a size sorting of grains in the outflow – the largest grain being carried out between 10 and 20 au. The peak dust density for each grain size occurs at the inner edge of its own entrainment region.