Dust formation in brown dwarf atmospheres under conditions of driven turbulence

Ch. Helling, R. Klein, P. Woitke, E. Sedlmayr

IAU Symposium No. 210 "Modelling of Stellar Atmospheres" (2002)

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Abstract:

Based on the knowledge gained from direct numerical simulations which are only possible in the microscale regime, a concept of driven turbulence is presented which allows to enter the mesoscopic scale regime. Here, dust formation under stochastic hydro- and thermodynamic conditions is studied: constructively superimposed stochastic waves initiate dust formation by the creation of singular nucleation events. It, hence, results a varying mean grain size and dust density in space and time. The newly formed dust changes the thermodynamic behavior from almost isotherm to adiabatic and chemically depletes the gas phase.