Astronomy Tea Talk

Turbulence is the main driving force of disk evolution and an important factor in planet formation models. While there are good candidates for mechanisms driving turbulence in protoplanetary disks, there are few observational constraints on the mechanism and even the level of turbulence in these objects. In this talk, I will focus on the impact of turbulence on radiative transfer models, a common tool in characterizing disk observations. I will show how it affects the vertical distribution of the dust in these disks and their observational appearance, and what it means for the first steps of planet formation. I will also zoom in on HD 100546, a disk with an embedded proto-planet, where we can couple the radiative transfer results to those of hydrodynamical simulations, thus providing consistent constraints on both turbulence and the nature of the unseen companion.