Long term evolution of protoplanetary disks

Full text: The project (S 11602-N16) within the Austrian FWF National Research Program Pathways to Habitability centers on the development of an implicit, time-dependent, radiation hydrodynamics code aimed for the numerical modeling of protoplanetary disks. Adopting such an implicit solution method we can model the entire disk, from the inner rim up to hundreds of AU. The physical equations describe the interactions between gas, dust particles and radiation fields. The angular momentum transport is given by the usual alpha-viscosity description. Our first results exhibit that we can efficiently calculate dynamical, transient processes as well as the long term evolution over the complete disk lifetime. (author)