Studies of gas-particle interaction: Implications for the streaming instability in protoplanetary disks

We present the early results from a novel experiment to study a particle-laden flow, under a parameter regime relevant to the conditions in planet-forming systems. We investigate the gas-particle interactions to identify the presence of and details regarding the streaming instability, which is theoretically predicted to aid the coalescence of small dust grains to form planetesimals - the macroscopic objects that will eventually interact gravitationally and become planets. We vary properties of the system such as dust-to-gas ratio, relative particle-gas velocity and gas pressure, for comparison to numerical simulations of protoplanetary disks. Experimentally calibrated numerical calculations of the particle motion within the instability regions will be used to model the evolution of protoplanetary disks at the scale of small dust grains, representing an unprecedented precision in our understanding of these difficult to study systems.