Symposium S4  23-24 June 2025

Setting the stage for planet formation: the importance of the environment for the evolution of protoplanetary discs

Aims and scope

Growing evidence indicates that protoplanetary discs are significantly affected by the environment in which they form. In particular, discs can be externally photoevaporated by the radiation from OB stars in massive regions and can also be subject to the late infall of material from the surrounding molecular cloud. These two processes act in opposite ways: external photoevaporation removes disc material, threatening planet formation, while late infall provides fresh material potentially extending the disc lifetime. Therefore, a clear picture of the influence of these processes on disc evolution is mandatory to understand the formation of planetary systems and the birth environment of our Sun.

Cutting-edge facilities such as ALMA, JWST, VLT/MUSE, etc, are providing for the very first time new and complementary results that enable us to explore the properties of young discs in crowded regions and their interactions with their large-scale environment. Simultaneously, updated models are being developed to interpret those observations encompassing all these relevant processes.

The time is, therefore, ripe to discuss the status of the field and recent advancements.

Programme

    Day one: The impact of massive stars: External Photoevaporation and jet irradiation
  • Impact on planet formation and exoplanetary system architectures
  • How does external photoevaporation affect disc composition?
  • How does external photoevaporation affect outflows given the role they likely play in angular momentum removal?
  • Proplyds: determining their characteristics and physical conditions and their connection to globules.


    • Day two: The impact of late Infall on the evolution of discs
  • Detection and observational studies
  • Physical mechanisms, Bondi-Hoyle accretion, streamers
  • Getting their physical properties
  • Implications for disc chemistry and evolution, and planet formation


Invited speakers

  • Cathie Clark (University of Cambridge, UK)
  • Andrew Winter (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Nice, France)
  • Maria Ramirez-Tannus (MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany)
  • Mari-Liis Aru (ESO, Garching)
  • Sierk van Terwisga (Space Research Institute, Austria)
  • Aashish Gupta (University of Virginia, USA)
  • Jane Huang (Columbia University, USA)
  • Linda Podio (INAF, Italy)
  • Troels Haugbølle (University of Copenhagen, DK)
  • Giulia Ballabio (Imperial College London, UK)

Scientific organisers

  • Karina Mauco (ESO, Germany; chair)
  • Megan Reiter (Rice University, US; co-chair)
  • Giovanni Rosotti (University of Milan, Italy; co-chair)
  • Carlo Manara (ESO, Germany co-chair)
  • Emma Whelan (Maynooth University, Ireland)
  • Christian Giski (University of Galway, Ireland)
  • Thomas Haworth (Queen Mary University, London, UK)
  • Michael Küffmeier (Niels Bohr Institute Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Anna Miotello (ESO, Germany)

      • Contact

    • Karina Mauco (kmaucoco @ eso.org)
    • Carlo Manara (cmanara @ eso.org)

      • Updated on Tue Mar 04 17:06:25 CET 2025
European Astronomical Society