Testing models of dust evolution in protoplanetary disk with millimeter observations

Abstract

The first steps of planet formation imply that dust grows from interstellar-like particles to planetesimals. Diferent physical processes play an important role in the dust evolution and its ability to coagulate and fragment, such as: radial drift, settling to the midplane and turbulent mixing. Observational evidences have shown that millimeter sized particles survive in the outer regions of protoplanetary disks in spite of the fragmentation destructive collisions and rapid inward migration of dust bodies, which are theoretically expected. The main goal of my thesis is to compare the state-of-the-art of gas and dust evolution models with current millimeter observations and look for the most favorable scenarios to have a good agreement between the two. Diferent cases have been explored: typical disks around Sun-like stars, lowmass disks as the ones around Brown Dwarfs and disk with inner gaps or holes known as transition disks. This work therefore brings new theoretical constraints to the planetesimal formation in young circumstellar disks, in direct link with the available observations.