Modeling of the Processes of Formation of Dust Fractal Clusters in a Protoplanetary Cloud

Abstract

Proceeding from the concept of the fractal nature of dust clusters, we develop an evolutionary hydrodynamic model of the formation and growth of loose dust aggregates in an aerodisperse medium of a laminar disk that was originally composed of gas and solid (sub)micron particles. In contrast to a number of classical studies, in which the aggregation process was modeled within an “ordinary” continuous medium and, consequently, the multifractional structure of the dust component of a protoplanetary cloud and the fractal nature of dust clusters being formed during the evolution were often ignored, this paper proposes to consider an ensemble of loose dust aggregates as a special type of a continuous medium, namely, a fractal medium, in which there are points and domains not occupied by dust particles.