1. The effect of radiation pressure on the dispersal of photoevaporating discs.
- Author
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Robinson, Alfie, Owen, James E, and Booth, Richard A
- Subjects
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CIRCUMSTELLAR matter , *PROTOPLANETARY disks , *RADIATION pressure , *RADIATIVE transfer , *PHOTON flux - Abstract
Observed infrared (IR) excesses indicate that protoplanetary discs evolve slowly for the majority of their lifetime before losing their near- and mid-IR excesses on short time-scales. Photoevaporation models can explain this 'two-time-scale' nature of disc evolution through the removal of inner regions of discs after a few million years. However, they also predict the existence of a population of non-accreting discs with large cavities. Such discs are scarce within the observed population, suggesting the models are incomplete. We explore whether radiation-pressure-driven outflows are able to remove enough dust to fit observations. We simulate these outflows using cudisc , including dust dynamics, growth/fragmentation, radiative transfer and a parametrization of internal photoevaporation. We find that, in most cases, dust mass-loss rates are around 5–10 times too small to meet observational constraints. Particles are launched from the disc inner rim, however grains larger than around a micron do not escape in the outflow, meaning mass-loss rates are too low for the initial dust masses at gap-opening. Only systems that have smooth photoevaporation profiles with gas mass-loss rates |$\gt \sim$| |$5 \times 10^{-9}$| |$\mathrm{ M}_\odot$| yr |$^{-1}$| and disc dust masses |$\lt \sim$| 1 |$\mathrm{ M}_{\oplus }$| at the time of gap opening can meet observational constraints; in the current models these manifest as EUV winds driven by atypically large high-energy photon fluxes. We also find that the height of the disc's photosphere is controlled by small grains in the outflow as opposed to shadowing from a hot inner rim; the effect of this can be seen in synthetic scattered light observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2025
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