ON THE HORSESHOE DRAG OF A LOW-MASS PLANET. II. MIGRATION IN ADIABATIC DISKS

Journal Article · Sun Sep 20 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/703/1/857· OSTI ID:21371952

Masset, F S; Casoli, J ^[1]

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1. Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Universite Paris Diderot, Irfu/Service d'Astrophysique, Bat. 709, CEA/Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)

We evaluate the horseshoe drag exerted on a low-mass planet embedded in a gaseous disk, assuming the disk's flow in the co-orbital region to be adiabatic. We restrict this analysis to the case of a planet on a circular orbit, and we assume a steady flow in the corotating frame. We also assume that the corotational flow upstream of the U-turns is unperturbed, so that we discard saturation effects. In addition to the classical expression for the horseshoe drag in barotropic disks, which features the vortensity gradient across corotation, we find an additional term which scales with the entropy gradient, and whose amplitude depends on the perturbed pressure at the stagnation point of the horseshoe separatrices. This additional torque is exerted by evanescent waves launched at the horseshoe separatrices, as a consequence of an asymmetry of the horseshoe region. It has a steep dependence on the potential's softening length, suggesting that the effect can be extremely strong in the three-dimensional case. We describe the main properties of the co-orbital region (the production of vortensity during the U-turns, the appearance of vorticity sheets at the downstream separatrices, and the pressure response), and we give torque expressions suitable to this regime of migration. Side results include a weak, negative feedback on migration, due to the dependence of the location of the stagnation point on the migration rate, and a mild enhancement of the vortensity-related torque at a large entropy gradient.

• OSTI ID: 21371952
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 703; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCRETION DISKS
DRAG
ENTROPY
FLUID FLOW
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
MASS
MECHANICS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PLANETS
PROTOPLANETS
STAGNATION POINT
STEADY FLOW
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
TORQUE