Radiative transfer modelling in protoplanetary disks with the P-N approximation and monte carlo techniques

A protoplanetary disk is a quasi-toroidal gas-dust mixture rotating around a protostar that creates a complex intensity field in the internal disk medium in which planets are believed to form. In this work we start to model an idealized disk describing the radiation intensity propagating along a vertical disk section using the P-N Approximation. This unidimensional approach can be extended to a flared surface case but the problem rapidly raises complexity in solving a simple cylindrical mid-plane region. The full 3D case is then handled with a Monte Carlo (MC) code reusing the idealized model to test the software reliability. The Monte Carlo lack in precision is fully repaid by the flexibility in describing the light-to-dust interaction moving the model towards a more realistic micro-physics based approach. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.