# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

It is presently believed that the formation of the planets in the solar system took place via a progressive aggregation of dust grains in the primordial solar nebula. However, a mechanism for building planetesimals between the centimer-size grains (formed by agglomeration and sticking) and the meter-size objects capable of triggering a gravitational instability is still lacking (see e.g. Adams & Lin 1993 and the recent review of Beckwith, Henning & Nakagawa 1999). Recently, it has been suggested (Barge & Sommeria 1995; Adams & Watkins 1995; Tanga et al. 1996), that heavy dust particles rapidly concentrate in the cores of anticyclonic vortices in the solar nebula, increasing the local density of centimeter-size grains and favoring the formation of larger scale objects which are then capable of efficiently triggering a gravitational instability. The gravitational instability itself is also enhanced because a vortex creates a larger local surface density in the disk. Consequently, even if giant planets form (as an alternative model suggests) initially due to a gravitational instabilty of the gaseous disk (rather than by planetesimal agglomeration), vortices may still play an important role. It is the change in the Keplerian velocity of the flow in the disk, due to the anticyclonic motion in the vortex, that induces a net force towards the center of the vortex (the inverse happens in a cyclonic vortex). As a consequence, within a few revolutions of the vortex around the protostar, the concentration of dust grains and the density in the anticyclonic vortex become much larger than outside. Analytical estimates (Tanga et al. 1996) have shown that, depending on the unknown drag on the dust particles in the gas, the trapping time for dust in a small anticyclonic vortex (of size $`D/r0.01`$ or less) located at 5 AU (the distance of Jupiter from the Sun) is about $`20<\tau <10^3`$years, i.e. between about 2 and 100 local periods of revolution. The mass that can accumulate in the core of the vortex on this time scale is of the order of $`10^5`$ earth masses (i.e. a planetesimal). Barge & Sommeria (1995) considered larger vortices (of size $`DH`$, where $`H`$ is the disk half thickness, and $`H/r0.06`$ at 5AU) and obtained that on a timescale of the order of 500 orbits, a core mass of about 16 earth masses can accumulate in the core of the vortex. Since small vortices are expected to merge into larger ones, these results should be regarded as complementary. The results of Tanga et al. (1996) could represent the early stages in planet formation (planetesimals), while the results of Barge & Sommeria (1995) could represent a later stage in the evolution (the formation of planets cores).   

It is therefore important for the theory of planet formation to assess under which conditions vortices form in disks, whether they are stable or not, and for how long they can survive in the disk.   

Analytical results (Adams & Watkins 1995, using a geostrophic approximation) have shown that many different types of vortex solutions are possible in circumstellar disks. However, Adams & Watkins (1995) used simplifying assumptions and they were unable to estimate the lifetime and stability of the vortices. In order to resolve the issue of the non-linear behavior of vortices (e.g. vortex merging, scattering, growth, etc.) one needs to carry out detailed numerical simulations of the flow.   

recent simplified simulations of a disk (Bracco et al. 1998), which assume an incompressible flow and solve the shallow water equations, indicate that two-dimensional (large scale) vortices do not fragment into small vortices because of the inverse cascade of energy (characteristic of two-dimensional flows). Rather, the opposite happens: small vortices merge together to form and sustain a large vortex. It is believed for example that the Great Red Spot in the atmosphere of Jupiter is a steady solitary vortex also sustained by the merging of small vortices (Marcus 1993; see also Ingersoll 1990). However, in this case the strong winds in Jupiter’s atmosphere are also partially feeding vorticity from the background flow into the vortex, and the decay time of the vortex is much longer.   

The shear in Keplerian disks inhibits the formation of vortices larger than a given scale length $`L_s`$ ($`L_s^2=v/(\mathrm{\Omega }/r)`$, where $`v`$ is the rotational velocity of the vortex (assumed to be subsonic, otherwise the energy is dissipated due to sound waves and shocks), and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular velocity in the disk). At the same time, the viscosity dissipates quickly vortices smaller than a viscous scale length $`L_\nu `$. Consequently, only vortices of size $`L`$ satisfying $`L_\nu <L<L_s`$ can survive in the flow for many orbits before being dissipated. In the calculations of Bracco et al. (1998), positive density perturbation counter rotating (anticyclonic) vortices were found to be long lived, while cyclonic vortices dissipated very quickly. However, as we noted above, Bracco et al. (1998) assumed a shallow water approximation for the disk. These authors do not specify the value of the specific heats ratio $`\gamma `$ that was used in the simulations (in order for the shallow water equation to represent a polytropic thin disk one has to assume $`\gamma =2`$; see e.g. Nauta & Tóth 1998). Most importantly the Mach number of the Keplerian flow (or equivalently the thickness of the disk) is not defined. It is presently not clear whether incompressible results (using a shallow water approximation) are valid for more realistic disks, i.e. for compressible (and potentially viscous) disks, with a density profile $`\rho r^{15/8}`$ and a temperature profile $`Tr^{3/4}`$ \- the standard Shakura-Sunyaev disk model (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973).   

It is the goal of the present work to model vortices in disks, using a more realistic approach. We conduct a numerical study of the stability and lifetime of vortices in a standard disk model of a protoplanetary nebula. For this purpose, we use a time-dependent, two-dimensional high-order accuracy hydrodynamical compressible code, assuming a polytropic relation. Here it is important to stress the following. The vorticity (circulation) of the flow (with a velocity field $`\stackrel{}{u}`$) is defined as

$$\stackrel{}{w}=\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{u}.$$
(1)   
Taking the curl of the Navier-Stokes Equations (see e.g. Tassoul 1978) one obtains an equation for the vorticity

$$\frac{\stackrel{}{w}}{t}+\stackrel{}{u}.\stackrel{}{}\rho \stackrel{}{w}\stackrel{}{}P\times \stackrel{}{}\rho +\mathrm{}$$
(2)   
The first term on the right hand side of the equation is the source term for the vorticity. Therefore, vorticity can be generated by the non-alignment of $`\rho `$ with $`P`$ (e.g. meridional circulation in stars is generated by this term). The resultant growth of circulation due to this term is also known as the baroclinic instability. However, in the present work we do not address the question of the vortex generation process, since we are using a polytropic relation $`P=K\rho ^\gamma `$ ($`K`$ is the polytropic constant, $`\gamma =1+1/n`$, and $`n`$ is the polytropic index), and the source term vanishes. In this case the vortencity (vorticity per unit mass) is conserved (Kelvin’s circulation theorem, see e.g. Pedlosky 1987) and vortices cannot be generated.   

In the next section we present the numerical modelling of the protoplanetary disk. The results are presented §3 and a discussion follows.   

## 2 Accretion Disks modelling

The time-dependent equations (e.g. Tassoul 1978) were written in cylindrical coordinates $`(r,\varphi ,z)`$, and were further integrated in the vertical (i.e. $`z`$) direction (e.g. Pringle 1981). We use a Fourier-Chebyshev spectral method of collocation (described in Godon 1997) to solve the equations of the disk. Spectral Methods are global high-order accuracy methods (Gottlieb & Orszag 1977; Voigt, Gottlieb & Hussaini 1984; Canuto et al. 1988). These methods are fast and accurate and are frequently used to study turbulent flows (e.g. She, Jackson & Orszag 1991) and interactions of vortices (Cho & Polvani 1996a). It is important to stress that spectral codes have very little numerical dissipation, and that the only dissipation that occurs in the present simulations is due to the $`\alpha `$ viscosity introduced in the equations. All the details of the numerical method and the exact form of the equations can be found in Godon (1997). We therefore give here only a brief overview of the modelling.   

The equations are solved in the plane of the disk $`(r,\varphi )`$, with $`0\varphi 2\pi `$ and $`R_0r2R_0`$, where the inner radius of the computational domain, $`R_0`$, has been normalized to unity. We use an alpha prescription (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973) for the viscosity law, $`\nu =\alpha c_sH=\alpha c_s^2/\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$, where $`c_s`$ is the sound speed and $`H=c_s/\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$ is the vertical height of the disk. The unperturbed flow is Keplerian, and we assume a polytropic relation $`P=K\rho ^{1+1/n}`$ ($`n`$ is the polytropic index, while the polytropic constant $`K`$ is fixed by choosing $`H/r`$ at the outer radial boundary). Both the inner and the outer radial boundaries are treated as free boundaries, i.e. with non-reflective boundary conditions where the conditions are imposed on the characteristics of the flow at the boundaries.   

The Reynolds number in the flow is given by

$$R_e=\frac{Lu}{\nu },$$

where $`L`$ is a characteristic dimension of the computational domain, $`u`$ is the velocity of the flow (or more precisely, the velocity change in the flow over a distance $`L`$) and $`\nu `$ is the viscosity. Since we are solving for the entire disk, $`Lr`$ and $`uv_K`$, and the Reynolds number becomes

$$R_e=\alpha ^1(H/r)^2,$$

where we have substituted $`\nu =\alpha H^2\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$, since we are using an $`\alpha `$ viscosity prescription. The Reynolds number in the flow is very high (of the order of $`10^410^5`$ for the assumed parameters).   

The simulations were carried out without the use of spectral filters and with a moderate resolution of $`128\times 128`$ collocations points. As we noted above, the only dissipation in the flow is due to the $`\alpha `$ viscosity introduced in the equations (i.e. the Navier-Stokes equations).   

## 3 Numerical Results

In all the models presented here we chose $`H/r=0.15`$ to match protoplanetary disks, however similar results were obtained using $`H/r=0.05`$ and $`H/r=0.25`$. The models were first evolved in the radial dimension for an initial dynamical relaxation phase (lasting several Keplerian orbits at least). Then an axisymmetric disk was constructed from the one-dimensional results, on top of which we introduced an initial vorticity perturbation. The initial vorticity perturbation had a Gaussian-like form and a constant rotational velocity of the order of $`0.2c_s`$. In all the models we found that cylonic vortices dissipate very quickly, within about one local Keplerian orbit, while anticyclonic disturbances persist in the flow for a much longer period of time. It is important to stress that in all the models, the anticyclonic vortex, although rotating in the retrograde direction (in the rotating frame of reference), has a rotation rate that is slower than the local Keplerian flow, and consequently, in the inertial frame of reference the vortex rotates in the prograde direction, like a planet. As the models are evolved, the initial vorticity perturbation is streched and elongated by the shear, within a few Keplerian orbits. The elongation of the vorticity into a thin structure transfers enstrophy (the potential enstrophy is defined as the average of the square of the potential vorticity) towards high wave numbers. This process is consistent with the direct cascade of enstrophy characteristic of two-dimensional turbulence. It forms an elongated negative (relative to the local flow) vorticity strip in the direction of the shear, with an elongated vortex in the middle of it (Figure 1). Due to a Kelvin-Helmoltz instability, perturbations in a forming vorticity strip propagate (along the strip) in the direction opposite to the shear. These propagating waves are called Rossby waves in Geophysics (see e.g. Hoskins et al. 1985; in Geophysics this instability is referred to as a shearing instability, e.g. Haynes 1987; Marcus, 1993, section 6.2). As a result of this instability the two bendings in the vorticity strip (namely, the trailing and the leading vorticity waves of the vortex) move in the direction opposite to the shear and fold onto themselves. The extremities of the vorticity waves can be again elongated by the shear and and can undergo further folding due to the propagation of the Rossby waves. This results in spiral vorticity arms around the vortex (Figure 2). The shape of the vortex thus formed, then does not change any more during the remaining time of the simulation (dozens of orbits).   

We also find that anticyclonic vortices act like overdense regions in the disk, i.e. within about one orbit the density increases by about 10 percent in the core of the vortex. We cannot check, however, whether a cyclonic vortex decreases the density in its core, since cyclonic vortices dissipate very quickly.   

### 3.1 Flat density profile models

In a first series of models, we chose a constant density profile throughout the disk with a polytropic index $`n=3`$. These models are less realistic and are probably closer to the models of Bracco et al. (1998) who used an incompressible approximation (the shallow water equation). We ran four models with different values of the viscosity parameter $`\alpha =1\times 10^4`$, $`3\times 10^4`$, $`6\times 10^4`$ and $`1\times 10^3`$. The viscosity parameter was chosen so as to be consistent with values inferred for protostellar disks (e.g. Bell et al. 1995). The simulations were followed for up to a maximum time of 60 local Keplerian orbits of the vortex in the disk. We found exponential decay times for the vortex of $`\tau =3.9`$ periods for $`\alpha =10^3`$ and $`\tau =32.4`$ periods for $`\alpha =10^4`$ (see Figure 4). In all cases the decay was exponential.

### 3.2 Standard disk models

In an attempt to study the stability and decay times of vortices in more realistic disks, we modelled a standard Shakura Sunyaev disk (Shakura & Sunyaev, 1973) with $`\rho r^{15/8}`$ and $`Tr^{3/4}`$ (this was achieved by choosing a polytropic index $`n=2.5`$ together with an ideal gas equation of state). In this model we chose $`\alpha =10^4`$, and the simulations were followed for up to 20 local Keplerian orbits of the vortex in the disk. Although the initial vorticity perturbation was the same as before, the decay time of the vortex ($`\tau =60`$), and its size were found to be larger than for the flat density models (see Figure 4). However, difficulties in assessing precisely the size of the vortex make it difficult to determine whether the different decay time is due to the different size of the vortex or merely to the different density profiles of the models. We also ran an additional model with a lower viscosity parameter of $`\alpha =10^5`$ and found an exponential decay time of more than 315 orbits. In this case the resolution was increased to $`256\times 256`$ and the vortex that formed was slightly smaller in size than in the previous models.   

In order to gain further insight into the dynamics of vortices, we also ran two additional models (one with $`\alpha =10^4`$ and one with $`\alpha =10^3`$) where two vorticity perturbations were initially introduced in the flow. In the case of $`\alpha =10^4`$, the vortices interact by propagating vorticity waves and eventually the two vortices merge together to form a single larger vortex (see Figures 5a - 5d). In the case of $`\alpha =10^3`$, the vortices do not interact (no vorticity waves were observed) and dissipate quickly.   

The results indicate that the exponential decay time of a vortex is inversely proportional to the viscosity (Figure 6), and it can be very large indeed (in $`3060`$ orbits the amplitude of the vortex decreases by a factor of $`e`$) for disks around Young Stellar Objects, where the viscosity might be low ($`\alpha =10^4`$). One expects the decay time to behave like $`\tau d^2/\nu `$ (see also Bracco et al. 1998), where $`d`$ is the size of the vortex and $`\nu `$ is the viscosity in the flow. In principle, an inviscid model could have vortices that do not decay. Therefore, any decay that has previously been observed in inviscid numerical simulations (e.g. the shallow water approximation of Bracco et al. 1998) was probably due to numerical diffusion in the code (the hyperviscosity introduced by Bracco et al. 1998 in their model).   

## 4 Discussion

Accretion disks possess a very strong shear, which is normally believed to lead to a rapid destruction of any structures that form within it (e.g. the spiral waves obtained in a perturbed disk by Godon & Livio 1998, dissipate or exit the computational domain within about 10 orbits for $`\alpha =1\times 10^4`$). However, we find that anticyclonic vortices are surprisingly long-lived, and they can survive for hundreds of orbits (the amplitude of the vortex decreases exponentially with a time constant of 60 orbits for $`\alpha =10^4`$ in disks around young stellar objects). These results are in agreement with other similar simulations of the decay of two-dimensional turbulence, e.g. the simulations of rotating shallow-water decaying turbulence on the surface of a sphere (Cho & Polvani, 1996a & b; modelling of the Jovian atmosphere), where the only dissipation of the vorticity is due to the (hyper) viscosity. The size and the elongation of the vortices that form out of an initial vorticity perturation increase with the viscosity. In order for the model to be self consistent, the size of the vortices has to be larger than the thickness of the disk (validity of the two-dimensional assumption, otherwise the vortices are three dimensional). We found that for an alpha viscosity of the order of $`10^5`$ (with $`H/r=0.15`$) the semi-major axis $`a`$ of the vortices is slightly smaller than $`H`$. However, when the viscosity is increased to $`10^3`$ the semi-major axis becomes up to three times the thickness of the disk. In all the cases the semi-minor axis $`b`$ remains smaller than $`H`$, while the elongation ($`a/b`$) varies from about 4 (for the less viscous case) to about 10 (for the most viscous model). Tanga et al. (1996) and Barge & Sommeria (1995) solved numerically the equations of motion for dust particles in vortices, and confirmed that dust particles concentrate inside vortices on a relatively short timescale. The time taken by a dust particle to reach the center of an anticyclonic vortex at a few AU ranges from a few orbits to a hundred orbits, depending on the exact value of the drag parameter. We have shown that in a standard disk model for a protoplanetary disk (a polytropic disk with $`H/r=0.15`$), vortices can survive long enough to allow dust particles to concentrate in their core. For $`\alpha =10^3`$ only small vortices would form and would not merge together. In this case (using the estimate of Tanga et al. 1996 for small vortices) one finds that the vortices would decay within about 10 orbits and the dust concentration in the core of the vortices would only reach $`10^6`$ Earth masses (planetesimals, at 5AU). For $`\alpha =10^4`$ small vortices would merge together to form larger vortices. The concentration of dust grains in the core of the larger vortices could reach about 2 Earth masses (within a hundred revolutions and using the estimate of Barge & Sommeria 1995 at 5AU). Therefore, the local density of centimeter-size grains could be increased, thus favoring the formation of larger scale objects which are then capable of efficiently triggering a gravitational instability. Our results therefore confirm earlier suspicions that were based on a simplified solution of shallow water equations for an incompressible fluid.   

It is important to note though, that in the present work we have not addressed yet the problem of vortex formation. In addition to the baroclinic instability described in the Introduction, another potential way to generate vortices in disks around young stellar objects is through infall of rotating clumps of gas. It has been suggested that protostellar disks could grow from the accretion (or collapse) of rotating gas cloud (e.g. Cassen & Moosman 1981; Boss & Graham 1993; Graham 1994; Fiebig 1997). The clumps with the proper rotation vectors could then give rise to small vortices, that would subsequently merge together.   

Finally, we would like to mention that vortices can (in principle at least) have many other astrophysical applications. For example, interacting Rossby waves can result in radial angular momentum transport (e.g. Llewellyin Smith 1996). Vortices are also believed to be important in molecular cloud substructure formation in the Galactic disk (e.g. Chantry, Grappin & Léorat 1993; Sasao 1973).   

## Acknowledgments

This work has been supported in part by NASA Grant NAG5-6857 and by the Director Discretionary Research Fund at STScI.   

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Figures Caption

Figure 1: A colorscale of the vorticity shows the stretching of an anticyclonic vorticity perturbation in a disk model with a viscosity parameter of $`\alpha =10^4`$. This results in a negative vorticity strip in the flow, which is then further affected by the propagation of Rossby waves along its wings.    

Figure 2: A detailed view of an anticyclonic vortex in the disk, a few orbits later than shown in Figure 1. The vorticity wings have folded up onto themselves due to a Kelvin-Helmoltz instability (accompanied by the propagation of Rossby waves).    

Figure 3: The momentum ($`\rho \stackrel{}{v}`$) field is shown in the vicinity of the vortex. The coordinates ($`r,\varphi `$) have been displayed on a Cartesian grid.    

Figure 4: The maximum amplitude $`A`$ of the absolute vorticity of the vortex is drawn in arbitrary logarithmic units as a function of time (in orbits), for values of the alpha viscosity parameter ranging from $`\alpha =10^5`$ to $`\alpha =10^3`$. The full lines represents the initial flat density profile models, while the doted lines are for an initial density profile matching a standard disk model. In all the models, during the first orbits, the decay of the maximum amplitude of the vorticity is stronger, due to the relaxation of the initial vorticity perturbation. The figure shows that the amplitude behaves like $`Ae^{t/\tau }`$, where $`\tau `$, the decay time, increases as the viscosity decreases.    

Figures 5a-d. As two vortices interact, they emit vorticity waves and eventually merge to form one large vortex. In this model the viscosity parameter was taken to be $`\alpha =10^4`$. For convenience the vortices are shown roughly in the same orientation in the disk. The complete process of merging takes about $`510`$ orbits.   

Figure 6: The decay time $`\tau `$ against $`\alpha ^1`$. The flat-density models of Figure 4 are represented by stars, together with a straight line $`\tau =c/\alpha `$, where $`c=3.2\times 10^3`$.