The magnetisation of protoplanetary disks

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0301348

From: Guido T. Birk <birk@usm.uni-muenchen.de>

Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 09:57:16 GMT   (331kb)

Authors:
G.T. Birk,
H. Wiechen,
A. Kopp,
H. Lesch

Comments: to be published in 2003

The remanent magnetisation of meteorite material in the solar system
indicates that magnetic fields of several Gauss are present in the
protoplanetary disk. It is shown that such relativelystrong magnetic fields can
be generated in dusty protoplanetary disks by relative shear motions of the
charged dust and the neutral gas components. Self-consistent multi-fluid
simulations show that for typical plasma parameters shear flows with
collisional momentum transfer between the different components of the dusty
plasma result in a very efficient generation of magnetic fields with strengths
of about 0.1-1 Gauss on spatial scales of two astronomical units in about one
year. Based on the simulations one may predict that future measurements will
reveal the strong magnetisation of circumstellar disks around young stellar
objects.

References and citations for this submission:

SLAC-SPIRES HEP (refers to ,
cited by, arXiv reformatted)