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L. Mayer (University of Zurich), T.R. Quinn (University of Washington), J. Wadsley (McMaster University), J. Stadel (University of Zurich)
We present the results of state-of-the art 3D SPH simulations that study gravitational instabilities in gaseous protoplanetary disks. We show that disk instability can produce protoplanets with masses and orbits consistent with those of known extrasolar planets due to fragmentation in bound clumps along spiral arms. The thermodynamical conditions required for the model to work are discussed. In addition, we report on the results of new simulations studying the disk instability in systems of binary stars, each of them surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. We discuss how the efficiency of fragmentation is different in single and binary stellar systems evolved using the same thermodynamical model. A different giant planet formation efficiency is thus expected in binary versus single stellar systems which is instead not expected in the competing formation model, core-accretion. As more extrasolar planets are detected in binary systems, an estimate of their frequency in the latter will help testing the viability of the disk instabiity model.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: lucio@physik.unizh.ch
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #2
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.