Hydrostatic equilibrium

About: Hydrostatic equilibrium is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2451 publications have been published within this topic receiving 62172 citations.

Early planet formation in embedded protostellar disks

Abstract: Recent surveys of young star formation regions have shown that the dust mass of the average class II object is not high enough to make up the cores of giant planets. Younger class O/I objects have enough dust in their embedded disk, which raises the question whether the first steps of planet formation occur in these younger systems. The first step is building the first planetesimals, which are generally thought to be the product of the streaming instability. Hence the question can be restated to read whether the physical conditions of embedded disks are conducive to the growth of the streaming instability. The streaming instability requires moderately coupled dust grains and a dust-to-gas mass ratio near unity. We model the collapse of a dusty proto-stellar cloud to show that if there is sufficient drift between the falling gas and dust, regions of the embedded disk can become sufficiently enhanced in dust to drive the streaming instability. We include four models to test a variety of collapse theories: three models with different dust grain sizes, and one model with a different initial cloud angular momentum. We find a sweet spot for planetesimal formation for grain sizes of a few 10s of micron because they fall sufficiently fast relative to the gas to build a high dust-to-gas ratio in the disk midplane, but their radial drift speeds are slow enough in the embedded disk to maintain the high dust-to-gas ratio. Unlike the gas, which is held in hydrostatic equilibrium for a time as a result of gas pressure, the dust can begin to collapse from all radii at a much earlier time. The dust mass flux in class O/I systems can thus be higher than the gas flux. This builds an embedded dusty disk with a global dust-to-gas mass ratio that exceeds the inter-stellar mass ratio by at least an order of magnitude. The streaming instability can produce at least between 7 and 35 M ⊕ of planetesimals in the class O/I phase of our smooth embedded disks, depending on the size of the falling dust grains. This mass is sufficient to build the core of the first giant planet in the system, and could be further enhanced by dust traps and/or pebble growth. This first generation of planetesimals could represent the first step in planet formation. It occurs earlier in the lifetime of the young star than is traditionally thought.

Atmospheric Gravity Perturbations Measured by Ground-Based Interferometer with Suspended Mirrors

Abstract: A possibility of geophysical measurements using the large scale laser interferometrical gravitational wave antenna is discussed. An interferometer with suspended mirrors can be used as a gradiometer measuring variations of an angle between gravity force vectors acting on the spatially separated suspensions. We analyze restrictions imposed by the atmospheric noises on feasibility of such measurements. Two models of the atmosphere are invoked: a quiet atmosphere with a hydrostatic coupling of pressure and density and a dynamic model of moving region of the density anomaly (cyclone). Both models lead to similar conclusions up to numerical factors. Besides the hydrostatic approximation, we use a model of turbulent atmosphere with the pressure fluctuation spectrum f^{-7/3} to explore the Newtonian noise in a higher frequency domain (up to 10 Hz) predicting the gravitational noise background for modern gravitational wave detectors. Our estimates show that this could pose a serious problem for realization of such projects. Finally, angular fluctuations of spatially separated pendula are investigated via computer simulation for some realistic atmospheric data giving the level estimate 10^{-11} rad/sqrt(Hz) at frequency 10^{-4} Hz. This looks promising for the possibility of the measurement of weak gravity effects such as Earth inner core oscillations.

Models of the open solar atmosphere

Abstract: McWhirter et al. (1975) have presented a standard model for the transition region and inner corona that matches with the Harvard Smithsonian Reference Atmosphere. They assume an open field line configuration and solve numerically the equations of energy and hydrostatic equilibrum. The purpose of the present paper is to generalise their model for the temperature and density as functions of height in several ways and, in particular, to determine the temperature maxium and its location. The effect of varying the following characteristics of the model is determined: