A project funded by the European Research Council
Revealing the dynamics of planet forming discs by linking state-of-the-art numerical models to high resolution observations
Understand the environment of planet formation starting from first principle (astro)physics.
We consider several astrophysical processes involved in the dynamics of gas and dust around young stars: magneto-hydrodynamics, chemistry & radiative transfer
Because the physical processes are complex, coupled and often highly-nonlinear, high performance computations are usually required. A specific cluster dedicated to the project is therefore hosted by Université Grenoble Alpes.
In order to test our models and predictions, comparison to observations are performed with data obtained from ALMA and VLT
Find out more about mhdiscs
Circumstellar discs are the birthplaces of planets. They form around young protostars and dissipate in a few million years. Modern submillimeter and optical telescopes such as ALMA and VLT/SPHERE are now able to resolve thin structures in the bulk of these objects, such as rings, crescents, spirals and winds, probing the very origin of planetary systems similar to our own. Our current understanding of these discs relies on a very crude modelling of a hypothetic magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence thought to play an essential role in the evolution and structure of these systems. However, there is now compelling theoretical and observational evidence that these discs are weakly turbulent, if not laminar, because of their low ionisation fraction and thus poor coupling to the magnetic field. This suggests that subtle MHD processes are driving the dynamics of these objects.
meet our TEAM
Principal investigator
CNRS Researcher, IPAG
Particle in cell expert
CNRS Researcher, IPAG
Jet & wind expert
Professor, Université Grenoble Alpes
Plasma Physics expert
Professor, Princeton University
Astrochemistry expert
CNRS Researcher, IPAG
Dust observation expert
CNRS Researcher, IPAG
Radiative transfer expert
ARC Future Fellow, Monash Univ.
Code Developement
GPU / Research engineer, IPAG
Jet Modeling, transition discs
PhD student, IPAG
Vortex formation, Dust dynamics
Postdoc, IPAG
Planet formation and migration
Postdoc, IPAG
Numerical simulations
Because we now have access to observations with exquisite precision, we need to accurately model the dynamics of these discs. This implies both including more physics in the models (heating processes, plasma conductivities), but also more complex computations which relies on large-scale parallel simulations.
Want to Join the team? Want to know more about our work?
Contact us, or come to see us at IPAG, Grenoble