Dissertation

Exploring the Interplay Between Dust and Water Ice During Planet Formation

Houge, Adrien

2024

Overview

Is there life on other planets? This question is the most important ever formulated by mankind, and is currently at the centre of astrophysical research. In the last few decades, the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets have provided essential help in tackling this question, demonstrating that planets are abundant in our galaxy. However, the characterisation of exoplanets can only provide an incomplete picture, making it difficult to assess the habitability of other worlds. Fundamental information may be gained by taking a step back, and studying how planets actually form in protoplanetary discs surrounding young stars. In this thesis, I investigate the first key step of the planet formation process: dust coagulation. Specifically, I investigate the interplay between dust and water ice, as water molecules may profoundly influence the dust coagulation process. I begin by studying protoplanetary discs undergoing FUor-type accretion outbursts, as they provide a unique laboratory for the study of water. I develop a code based on the Monte Carlo approach to investigate the impact of such intense events on the evolution of dust particles. I then apply these findings to an outbursting source, V883 Ori. I perform new analysis of archival ALMA data and, coupled with predictions from dust evolution models, I determine the response of icy aggregates to the sublimation of their ice mantles at the onset of outbursts. Finally, I present preliminary results on the delivery of dust and ice in the innermost regions of discs via pebble drift. Initial results show that the accumulation of dust may effectively hide the delivered water, modifying what column density may be measured from infrared spectra with JWST. This thesis concludes with a discussion on future works, where I highlight how my findings could be used to answer important questions for planet formation.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Aggregates / Astronomy / Dust / Particle size / Planetology / Water
• ISBN: 9798342111713