On the coagulation and fragmentation of dust in Protoplanetary disks

Recent images of protoplanetary disks reveal substructures in exquisite detail that are often linked to forming planets. Such planets can perturb the dust and gas profiles in the disk which can explain gaps and rings and may lead to the formation of a pressure maximum. Due to inwards radial drift, dust grains can become trapped at pressure maxima which may accelerate the formation process. However, due to computational expense, dust coagulation is often left out of simulations. To fully understand the processes at play and their effects on young planets and their dust environments, it is important that hydrodynamical simulations are coupled with dust coagulation and fragmentation physics.