accretion & planet growth

The classic picture of core accretion involves planets like Jupiter forming from the slow, quasi-static cooling of a gaseous envelope around a rocky core. With advances in computing power and an added diversity of exoplanets, this quasi-static picture merits re-examination. 3-dimensional hydrodynamics simulations show that material can be exchanged between a planet’s atmosphere and the protoplanetary disk, resulting in the transfer of mass and energy and changing the overall evolution. To get an idea of the resultant atmosphere evolution requires modeling cooling and accretion processes through radiative transfer alongside the hydrodynamic effects.

The setup of a typical hydrodynamics simulation used to study the 3-dimensional aspects of planet formation.

Much of my research has involved the development and analysis of these types of 3D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, resulting in a series of papers on the method, associated physical effects, and extensions to the classical picture of core accretion. As shown in these works, radiation-hydrodynamic simulations are vital to understanding the planet accretion process and can be applied to study the formation of atmospheres across the full diversity of planets from super-Earth to gas giant.