Title: Planets, rain and curdling milk
Event Date:
Thursday, 22 June 2017 - 4:00pm
Abstract: We believe that planets form in a disk (which contains gas and dust)
around young stars. Very small (micrometer) sized dust collide with
each other mediated by turbulent gas flow. These collisions (in some cases)
can give rise to coagulation by which the dust grains grow. A similar
process of collisional coagulation is thought to be responsible in
formation of raindrops from minute water droplets in clouds. One part of
the process is determined by turbulence (rate of collisions, relative
velocities during collisions, etc) and the other part (merging, bouncing, fragmenting) depend on the material properties of dust (or water droplets). If all collisions give rise to coagulation, weget into the regime of Smoluchowzki equations which also describes the
curdling of milk. I shall spend a significant time discussing the
different aspects of this many-splendoured problem and summarise our recent
results.
Venue:
Room 202 (Seminar room), Physics Department
IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai