WInDI: a Warp-Induced Dust Instability in protoplanetary discs

Abstract

We identify a new dust instability that occurs in warped discs. The instability is caused by the oscillatory gas motions induced by the warp in the bending wave regime. We first demonstrate the instability using a local 1D (vertical) toy model based on the warped shearing box coordinates and investigate the effects of the warp magnitude and dust Stokes number on the growth of the instability. We then run 3D smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations and show that the instability is manifested globally by producing unique dust structures that do not correspond to gas pressure maxima. The 1D and SPH analysis suggest that the instability grows on dynamical time-scales and hence is potentially significant for planet formation.