How planets form is one of the long-standing questions in astrophysics. In particular, formation scenarios of planetesimals which are kilometer-sized bodies and a precursor of planets are still unclear and under debate although some promising mechanisms have been proposed. This book highlight disk instabilities that have the potential to explain the origin of planetesimals. Using linear analyses and numerical simulations, it addresses how a disk evolves through the development of instabilities, and also presents a new instability driven by dust coagulation. As a result, the simulation demonstrates a scenario of planetesimal formation: A successive development of multiple instabilities triggers planetesimal formation in resulting dusty rings.

How planets form is one of the long-standing questions in astrophysics. In particular, formation scenarios of planetesimals which are kilometer-sized bodies and a precursor of planets are still unclear and under debate although some promising mechanisms have been proposed. This book highlight disk instabilities that have the potential to explain the origin of planetesimals. Using linear analyses and numerical simulations, it addresses how a disk evolves through the development of instabilities, and also presents a new instability driven by dust coagulation. As a result, the simulation demonstrates a scenario of planetesimal formation: A successive development of multiple instabilities triggers planetesimal formation in resulting dusty rings.

This book's interdisciplinary scope aims at bridging various communities: 1) cosmochemists, who study meteoritic samples from our own solar system, 2) (sub-) millimetre astronomers, who measure the distribution of dust and gas of star-forming regions and planet-forming discs, 3) disc modellers, who describe the complex photo-chemical structure of parametric discs to fit these to observation, 4) computational astrophysicists, who attempt to decipher the dynamical structure of magnetised gaseous discs, and the effects the resulting internal structure has on the aerodynamic re-distribution of embedded solids, 5) theoreticians in planet formation theory, who aim to piece it all together eventually arriving at a coherent holistic picture of the architectures of planetary systems discovered by 6) the exoplanet observers, who provide us with unprecedented samples of exoplanet worlds. Combining these diverse fields the book sheds light onto the riddles that research on planet formation is currently confronted with, and paves the way for a comprehensive understanding of the formation, evolution, and dynamics of young solar systems. The chapters ‘Chondrules – Ubiquitous Chondritic Solids Tracking the Evolution of the Solar Protoplanetary Disk’, ‘Dust Coagulation with Porosity Evolution’ and ‘The Emerging Paradigm of Pebble Accretion’ are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

How planets form is one of the long-standing questions in astrophysics. In particular, formation scenarios of planetesimals which are kilometer-sized bodies and a precursor of planets are still unclear and under debate although some promising mechanisms have been proposed. This book highlight disk instabilities that have the potential to explain the origin of planetesimals. Using linear analyses and numerical simulations, it addresses how a disk evolves through the development of instabilities, and also presents a new instability driven by dust coagulation. As a result, the simulation demonstrates a scenario of planetesimal formation: A successive development of multiple instabilities triggers planetesimal formation in resulting dusty rings.

The first comprehensive overview of planet formation for students and researchers in astronomy, cosmochemistry, laboratory astrophysics and planetary sciences.

Proceedings of a conference held in Heidelberg, Germany, July 15-20, 2013.