Dust dynamics in 2D gravito-turbulent discs

The dynamics of solid bodies in protoplanetary discs are subject to the properties of any underlying gas turbulence. Turbulence driven by disc self-gravity shows features distinct from those driven by the magnetorotational instability (MRI). We study the dynamics of solids in gravito-turbulent discs with two-dimensional (in the disc plane), hybrid (particle and gas) simulations. Gravito-turbulent discs can exhibit stronger gravitational stirring than MRI-active discs, resulting in greater radial diffusion and larger eccentricities and relative speeds for large particles (those with dimensionless stopping times t_stopΩ > 1, where Ω is the orbital frequency). The agglomeration of large particles into planetesimals by pairwise collisions is therefore disfavoured in gravito-turbulent discs. However, the relative speeds of intermediate-size particles (t_stopΩ ~ 1) are significantly reduced as such particles are collected by gas drag and gas gravity into coherent filament-like structures with densities high enough to trigger gravitational collapse. First-generation planetesimals may form via gravitational instability of dust in marginally gravitationally unstable gas discs.