U.S.-U.K. Collaborative Research: Origin of the Solar System

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This award will support collaborative research in solar system astronomy between Dr. Douglas Lin, University of California at Santa Cruz, and three British scientists: Dr. Sverre Aarseth, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University, and Drs. John Papaloizou and Philip Palmer, School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London. The objective of the project is to investigate the formation of prototerrestrial planets and protogiant planetary cores in the solar nebula environment. The specific tasks are: 1) to develop an analytical model for the dynamics of planetesimals, 2) to carry out N-body numerical simulations to examine the dynamical evolution and mass coagulation of planetesimals, 3) to investigate the effects of hydrodynamic drag and tidal interaction on the dynamics of planetesimals and protoplanets, and 4) to determine the dynamical impact of protoplanets on the structure and evolutions of the solar nebula. These theoretical investigations will be carried out with the aid of analytic formalisms and numerical schemes recently developed by the investigators. Data from solar system exploration and ground based observations of protostellar disks around young stellar objects will be used to constrain theoretical models. The project will benefit from the complementary expertise of the investigators and their successful history of past collaboration. Results of this research will contribute to the understanding of the origin of the solar system, one of the most outstanding problems in astrophysics and planetary science.