Farzana Meru - December 2, 2016

The role of self-gravitating discs in planet formation: recent developments from theory
and observations

Recent observations of protoplanetary discs are starting to hint that the young
turbulent self-gravitating disc phase is more important for planet formation than
previously thought.  In contrast to the standard paradigm for planet formation, these
results may now have pushed the likely era of planet formation into the brief, early
self-gravitating stage of disc evolution.  One such example is the Elias 2-27
protoplanetary disc which exhibits strong spiral structures out to approximately 250au.
Through the results of recent numerical simulations I will discuss whether Elias 2-27
could be the first observation of a self-gravitating disc.

Furthermore, a crucial element when exploring self-gravitating discs is to determine
whether or not they can fragment into planets.  Historically fragments are thought to
form at large radii in such discs.  I will discuss recent results of hydrodynamical
simulations which show that fragments may be triggered to form in the inner disc either
by a planet in the outer disc or by an external star, such as in a star cluster.