3D MHD simulations of planet migration in turbulent stratified disks

Abstract

We performed 3D MHD numerical simulations of planet migration in stratified disks using the Godunov code PLUTO (Mignone et al. 2007). The disk is invaded by turbulence generated by the magnetorotational instability (MRI). We study the migration for planets with different mass to primary mass ratio. The migration of the low-mass planet (q = Mp/Ms = 10-5 ) is dominated by random fluctuations in the torque and there is no defined direction of migration on timescales of 100 orbits. The intermediate-mass planet (q = Mp/Ms = 10-4 ) can experience systematic outwards migration that was sustained for the times we were able to simulate. © 2011 International Astronomical Union.